Friday, June 10, 2011

$72,384 to lock up youth

Number of the day: $72,384 (to lock up youth)

Photo provided by The Black Star Project

By Angela Caputo

May 5, 2011

That's how much the Illinois Department of Corrections estimates that it would cost to incarcerate each 15- and 16-year-old convicted of gun possession if HB2067 is adopted by the state legislature this year.

State Rep. Michael Zalewski -- along with some powerful allies from the Chicago Police Department

and Mayor Daley's office -- are trying to keep the measure alive this week before the clock runs out on moving the bill from the House to the Senate on Friday.

Under the bill, 15- and 16-year-olds charged with gun possession within 1,000 feet of a school or park would automatically be transferred to the adult felony courts. Under adult jurisdiction, those convicted would be required to spend at least one year behind bars, under a new mandatory minimum sentence that Zalewski ushered through the General Assembly last year.

Zalewski himself is the first to admit that the punishment is "harsh." But in our latest investigation, Without A Smoking Gun, he told the Reporter, "Chicago has a gun violence problem. Cops and kids are dying." Stiffer sentences, he predicts, would be a deterrent.

If 15- and 16-year-olds were automatically transferred to the adult felony courts, chances are the conviction rate would stay roughly the same. But the amount of time that teens are spending behind bars would grow.

A new Reporter analysis of court data found that gun possession cases are slightly more likely to stick if defendants are prosecuted in the juvenile courts. Roughly 37 percent of defendants either pleaded guilty or were found guilty by a judge between 2009 and the first quarter of 2011.

Meanwhile, 36 percent of teens facing the same charges in the adult felony courts were convicted in 2009 and 2010.

The major difference, though, is that 17 percent of the minors convicted in the adult courts were incarcerated, compared to 2 percent in juvenile court. Over the past five years, 49 percent of 17-year-olds were sentenced to prison. The average will grow to 100 percent under Zalewski's measure, which requires all defendants convicted of gun possession post January 2011 will serve out at least 12 months behind bars.

There's no question that the higher incarceration rate in the adult courts could take potential gun-toting teens off the streets.

What may end up killing the bill is the price tag, Zalewski tells us. According to data compiled by the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authorities, the bill has the potential to send hundreds more teens into the adult felony courts each year.

As we recently reported, 315 minors (15- and 16- year-olds) were charged under the gun possession statute during 2008 in Cook County alone. Another 268 were charged with the offense in 2009. It's unclear how many of those nearly 600 arrests occurred within 1,000 feet of a school or park because juvenile court records are sealed. Seventeen-year-olds are adults in the eyes of the courts, and therefore we obtained access to those records. We mapped more than two dozen convictions from 2009 under the same statute among 17-year-olds and found that more than half -- 13 of 27-- of randomly selected convictions fell within that 1,000-foot range.

Had Zalewski's measure already been on the books, taxpayers would be on the hook for more than $1.4 million if just one-third of the 15- and 16-year-olds charged with gun possession in 2008 and 2009 were convicted.

Will the law actually make communities grappling with gun violence safer? Phillip Jackson, the founder of The Black Star Project, a nonprofit that tends to victims of gun violence along with young ex-offenders, doubts it.

"I don't care how many of these kids you lock up, you're not going to get rid of this problem," Jackson recently told the Reporter. "There aren't enough policemen in the world to stop this."

Friday, June 3, 2011

Calif. prison workers cheated on timesheets

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Calif. prison workers cheated on timesheets

By DON THOMPSON

SACRAMENTO, Calif.

Dozens of employees at a California state prison were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for hours they didn't work during a three-month sampling period last year, according to an inspector general's report released Wednesday.

Auditors found that one mental health employee averaged less than 27 hours of his scheduled 40-hour work week inside Mule Creek State Prison, which is 40 miles southeast of the state capital. Teachers spent as few as 33 hours inside the prison, but were paid for a 40-hour week.

"Many of the prison's mental health and educational employees were fully paid, but did not average working full days inside the prison," wrote acting Inspector General Bruce Monfross.
Taxpayers paid $272,900 for time when the 66 employees were absent during the three-month sample period from June through August last year. That's a rate of nearly $1.1 million in overpayments each year at that prison alone. California, the nation's largest state prison system, has 33 adult prisons along with work camps and juvenile lockups.

Auditors cannot say if the practice is widespread because Mule Creek is the only prison requiring employees to clock in and out.

"According to the security system's electronic data, most of Mule Creek's psychiatrists, psychologists, and licensed clinical social workers regularly arrived to work late and left early, averaging as a group only 8.4 hours per day of their scheduled 10-hour shifts inside the secured perimeter," according to the report.
Union contracts say corrections officials aren't supposed to keep track of the hours employees actually work. Several employees told the auditors they understood, incorrectly, that their contracts let them leave early if they have completed their work for the day.
Others said they worked from home or reviewed inmate files in the administration building, outside the prison fence. However, working from home is not permitted and auditors said the file reviews did not come close to accounting for the lost hours.

Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Undersecretary Scott Kernan called the overpayments "unacceptable." The department is retraining employees statewide and changing procedures to correct the problem, Kernan wrote in response to the inspector general's report.
Corrections department spokeswoman Terry Thornton said employees have not been disciplined, nor has the department tried to recoup its money.

"I don't know exactly why not. I don't think it rose to the level of misconduct," she said.
Thornton said the problems led to the firing of the prison manager, but a spokeswoman for the court-appointed federal receiver who oversees prison medical and mental health care said that was not true. Spokeswoman Nancy Kincaid said no one had been fired as a result of the audit.
Employees with short hours included 11 of the prison's 13 psychiatrists, who worked an average of 26 to 34 hours each week. They are paid an average annual salary of $245,000.

Of the prison's 31 psychologists, 26 clocked fewer than 40 hours. They are paid $103,000 annually, on average.

All seven of the prisons' $80,000-a-year licensed clinical social workers were short, averaging 28 to 38 hours a week.

All 12 teachers and all five vocational instructors were absent when they were supposed to be at the prison, putting in 33 to 39 hours weekly. Their average salary is $77,000.
The problem was not limited to employees, according to the report: The prison's school principal and two vice principals put in 33 to 35 hours per week. They are paid annual salaries averaging $89,000.

Bullitt corrections officer arrested on drug trafficking charges in Shively

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Bullitt corrections officer arrested on drug trafficking charges in Shively

12:49 PM, May. 6, 2011 |

Written by Charlie White
cwhite@courier-journal.com

A Bullitt County corrections officer has been suspended without pay following his Thursday morning arrest in Shively.

Eric Risen, 26, of Brooks, was charged with four counts of trafficking in a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and disregarding a traffic signal, Shively police said.

He was released on his own recognizance and will be arraigned in court early next week, according to jail records.

Shively Police Detective Josh Myers said an officer stopped Risen after he allegedly ran a red light at Dixie Highway and Garrs Lane about 4:30 a.m. Thursday.

Risen “seemed extremely nervous and agitated” and asked the arresting officer to “cut him a break because he was a Bullitt County corrections officer,” Myers said, citing the arrest report.

After questioning and a subsequent search of the vehicle, police found 28 hydrocodone pills, 28½ oxymorphone pills, six doses of anabolic steroids, three syringes, three needles, a gun and ammunition, Myers said.

Bullitt County’s chief deputy jailer Robert Etherton said Risen was hired as a part-time officer on Jan. 28 and was still in his probationary period, which he said means Risen could be fired even if the charges were dropped.

Reporter Charlie White can be reached at (502) 582-4653.

NY corrections officers disciplined for fighting over bag of chips

Officer Lawrence Mule will serve a 60-day suspension without pay; Officer James Conlin will be suspended without pay until he retires

By Matthew Spina
Buffalo News

ERIE COUNTY, N.Y. — Here's how the chips fell Monday with two Erie County corrections officers accused of fighting while on duty, apparently over a bag of potato chips:

Officer Lawrence Mule will serve a 60-day suspension without pay. He has signed a "last-chance" agreement stating he can be fired for any additional misconduct. He must complete an anger-management program, and he waives his right to take his discipline to arbitration.

Further, when he returns from suspension, the Sheriff's Office can assign him to other housing units aside from the Yankee Building, where the fight occurred. Officers at the Erie County Correctional Facility are allowed to bid on their preferred assignments based on seniority.

*Officer James Conlin will be suspended without pay until he retires in late June. He will not return to duty at the County Correctional Facility in Alden, Undersheriff Mark N. Wipperman said.

"We are confident that the timeliness and level of the discipline administered in this case will send a clear message that this type of misconduct will never be tolerated in the Sheriff's Office," Wipperman said after a disciplinary hearing Monday with the two officers and their union representatives.

"We hold the public's trust and confidence in the highest regard, and we will do whatever it takes to maintain it. This incident was extremely embarrassing and upsetting," he said.

Other corrections officers had speculated the two would be fired, but the Sheriff's Office has been losing such termination cases in arbitration hearings.

Arbitrators want to see "progressive discipline" as employees are punished for wrongdoing, and the bizarre episode involving Conlin and Mule had apparently been rare for both men. Wipperman called the disciplines appropriate for the circumstances.

A fight, or what some called a shoving match, erupted between the two April 21 in the Yankee Building, which houses inmates but is across the street from the main county Correctional Facility campus in Alden.

Officers who asked to remain unidentified said a bag of chips somehow sparked the fight. In another bizarre twist, an inmate who told internal investigators that he didn't want to see the men fired was injured trying to break up their encounter.

Wipperman had refused to confirm that potato chips were at the center of the confrontation but agreed the men started arguing over "the dissemination of food products." Still, he promised swift discipline and after the hearings Monday said it was time to move on toward continued improvements in the county's Jail Management Division.

Both Conlin and Mule declined to comment publicly when contacted by The Buffalo News in recent days. Joan Bender, the head of the union that represents the officers, Local 815 of the Civil Service Employees Association, confirmed that the men surrendered their right to arbitrate the discipline but also said she felt media reports had blown the matter out of proportion.

Justices, 5-4, Tell California to Cut Prisoner Population

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Justices, 5-4, Tell California to Cut Prisoner Population

By ADAM LIPTAK

WASHINGTON — Conditions in California’s overcrowded prisons are so bad that they violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday, ordering the state to reduce its prison population by more than 30,000 inmates.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority in a 5-to-4 decision that broke along ideological lines, described a prison system that failed to deliver minimal care to prisoners with serious medical and mental health problems and produced “needless suffering and death.”

Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr. filed vigorous dissents. Justice Scalia called the order affirmed by the majority “perhaps the most radical injunction issued by a court in our nation’s history.” Justice Alito said “the majority is gambling with the safety of the people of California.”

The majority opinion included photographs of inmates crowded into open gymnasium-style rooms and what Justice Kennedy described as “telephone-booth-sized cages without toilets” used to house suicidal inmates. Suicide rates in the state’s prisons, Justice Kennedy wrote, have been 80 percent higher than the average for inmates nationwide. A lower court in the case said it was “an uncontested fact” that “an inmate in one of California’s prisons needlessly dies every six or seven days due to constitutional deficiencies.”
Monday’s ruling in the case, Brown v. Plata, No. 09-1233, affirmed an order by a special three-judge federal court requiring state officials to reduce the prison population to 110,000, which is 137.5 percent of the system’s capacity. There have been more than 160,000 inmates in the system in recent years, and there are now more than 140,000.

Prison release orders are rare and hard to obtain, and even advocates for prisoners’ rights said Monday’s decision was unlikely to have a significant impact around the nation.

“California is an extreme case by any measure,” said David C. Fathi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project, which submitted a brief urging the justices to uphold the lower court’s order. “This case involves ongoing, undisputed and lethal constitutional violations. We’re not going to see a lot of copycat litigation.”

State officials in California will have two years to comply with the order, and they may ask for more time. Justice Kennedy emphasized that the reduction in population need not be achieved solely by releasing prisoners early. Among the other possibilities, he said, are new construction, transfers out of state and using county facilities.

At the same time, Justice Kennedy, citing the lower court decision, said there was “no realistic possibility that California would be able to build itself out of this crisis,” in light of the state’s financial problems.
The court’s more liberal members — Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — joined Justice Kennedy’s opinion.

The special court’s decision, issued in 2009, addressed two consolidated class-action suits, one filed in 1990, the other in 2001. In 2006, Arnold Schwarzenegger, then governor, said conditions in the state’s prisons amounted to a state of emergency.

The majority seemed persuaded that the passage of time required the courts to act.

Justice Scalia summarized his dissent, which was pungent and combative, from the bench. Oral dissents are rare; this was the second of the term. Justice Kennedy looked straight ahead as his colleague spoke, his face frozen in a grim expression.

The decision was the fourth 5-to-4 decision of the term so far. All four of them have found the court’s more liberal members on one side and its more conservative members on the other, with Justice Kennedy’s swing vote the conclusive one. In the first three cases, Justice Kennedy sided with the conservatives.

On Monday, he went the other way. This was in some ways unsurprising: in his opinions and in speeches, Justice Kennedy has long been critical of what he views as excessively long and harsh sentences.

“A prison that deprives prisoners of basic sustenance, including adequate medical care, is incompatible with the concept of human dignity and has no place in civilized society,” Justice Kennedy wrote on Monday.
In his dissent, Justice Scalia wrote that the majority opinion was an example of the problem of courts’ overstepping their constitutional authority and institutional expertise in issuing “structural injunctions” in “institutional-reform litigation” rather than addressing legal violations one by one.

He added that the prisoners receiving inadequate care were not necessarily the ones who would be released early.

“Most of them will not be prisoners with medical conditions or severe mental illness,” Justice Scalia wrote, “and many will undoubtedly be fine physical specimens who have developed intimidating muscles pumping iron in the prison gym.”

In his statement from the bench, Justice Scalia said that the prisoners to be released “are just 46,000 happy-go-lucky felons fortunate enough to be selected.” (The justices used varying numbers in describing the number of affected prisoners. California’s prison population has been declining.)
Justice Kennedy concluded his majority opinion by saying that the lower court should be flexible in considering how to carry out its order.

Justice Scalia called this concluding part of the majority opinion “a bizarre coda” setting forth “a deliberately ambiguous set of suggestions on how to modify the injunction.”

“Perhaps,” he went on, “the coda is nothing more than a ceremonial washing of the hands — making it clear for all to see, that if the terrible things sure to happen as a consequence of this outrageous order do happen, they will be none of this court’s responsibility. After all, did we not want, and indeed even suggest, something better?”

Justice Clarence Thomas joined Justice Scalia’s dissent.

In a second dissent, Justice Alito, joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., addressed what he said would be the inevitable impact of the majority decision on public safety in California.

He summarized the decision this way, adding italics for emphasis: “The three-judge court ordered the premature release of approximately 46,000 criminals — the equivalent of three Army divisions.”
Justice Alito acknowledged that “particular prisoners received shockingly deficient medical care.” But, he added, “such anecdotal evidence cannot be given undue weight” in light of the sheer size of California’s prison system, which was at its height “larger than that of many medium-sized cities” like Bridgeport, Conn.; Eugene, Ore.; and Savannah, Ga.

“I fear that today’s decision, like prior prisoner-release orders, will lead to a grim roster of victims,” Justice Alito wrote. “I hope that I am wrong. In a few years, we will see.”

T.I. Helps Families Of 14 Fellow Inmates Visit Correctional Facility

'Their families can't afford the trip, so I wanted to help out,' T.I. says in a statement to MTV News.

While most spent this Memorial Day weekend at BBQs, the beach or in the club, T.I. spent his behind bars. But he also found a way to give back. Tip, who is currently incarcerated at the Forrest City Correctional Facility in Forrest City, Arkansas, in the midst of an 11-month bid for a probation violation after an L.A. drug arrest, sponsored a bus trip for the 46 family members of 14 fellow inmates to visit the prison.
"I've been blessed to receive tons and tons of mail from my fans, family and friends, as well as get visits on a regular basis. Unfortunately some guys aren't as fortunate," T.I. said in a statement obtained by MTV News. "There are a lot of good dudes in here that haven't been able to see there loved ones in years. Their families can't afford the trip so I wanted to help out."

Family and friends who took part in the bus trip, dubbed "To See a Love One," boarded a chartered bus in Atlanta and Alabama on Saturday and visited the prison on Sunday and Monday (May 30).
T.I. turned himself in to authorities last November and reported to the Forrest City federal facility, the same place where he served nine months in 2009 after he struck a plea deal stemming from his 2007 gun case. The rapper was released in March 2010 and sent to a halfway house to complete his sentence. In September of the same year, T.I. and his wife were arrested in Los Angeles for a driving violation and charged with drug possession. L.A. authorities eventually dropped the charges against Tip, but the Grand Hustle CEO was found in violation of his probation and thus sent back to prison.

Grant Targets Prison Cycle

Grant targets prison cycle

Second Chance program aims to keep ex-cons from returning

Jimmie E. Gates • May 28, 2011

It's the revolving door of young males entering the corrections system, coming out and then going back.

About a third of offenders return to prison after their release, according to the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

The nonprofit West Jackson Community Development Corp. hopes to provide the support needed to stop the cycle for at least 40 ex-offenders in the Jackson metro area.

A $300,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice will give the organization the financial backing for its second chance re-entry program.

West Jackson CDC will work in conjunction with MDOC to identify former offenders, ages 18 to 34, to receive help with education, housing and job replacement.

"We know those offenders who leave our custody with a place to live and strong support systems have a much higher likelihood of staying out," state Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said.

Epps said the recidivism rate is the highest the first year of release.

Three months before offenders are released, mentors will begin working with them. The former inmates will be chosen from Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility, the South Mississippi Correctional Institution in Greene County, and the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl.

"The Second Chance Act grant is a significant step in helping our effort to address successful community reintegration for offenders as they transition back into the Jackson community," West Jackson CDC Executive Director Linda Carter said in a news release announcing the program.

For some, the two-year program will be coordinated with the $1.1 million YouthBuild grant West Jackson CDC was awarded in March from the U.S. Department of Labor, Carter said.

The grant is part of $30.7 million the Labor Department awarded for its YouthBuild program, which prepares youth for careers through hands-on construction training, and high school completion and General Educational Development programs.

West Jackson was the sole Mississippi agency to receive funding, the department said.

West Jackson CDC's YouthBuild is for ages 16-24 and allows participants to earn GEDs, gain job skills and serve the community by building affordable housing.

Participants work with contractors and subcontractors for affordable housing. Carter said YouthBuild participants are working on six homes in west Jackson.

YouthBuild participants are paid a maximum $300 stipend every two weeks.

The former inmates who qualify for the second chance re-entry program will be used in the YouthBuild program to gain job skills, Carter said. The YouthBuild program isn't new for West Jackson CDC, but the inmate program is.

Carter said a person has been hired to run the second chance program, and mentors are being identified to work with the former offenders. About 100 volunteers will be recruited to be mentors.

Bible Studies

True Vine Christian Academy's Prison Ministry invites you to join our Bible Studies. Every Saturday through October we will be meeting in North Meadow of Central Park (in the soda room) from 12:30 pm until 2:00 pm.

You can get to the park by taking the B train to 96th street. We are near the tennis courts. Call 646-387-3645 for more information or directions.

I look forward to seeing you there.

Thursday, June 2, 2011