BREAKING NEWS: Felon Disenfranchisement Policy Challenged

Today, several Californian civil rights organizations filed a new lawsuit with the First District Appellate Court, arguing against Secretary of State Deborah Bowen’s policy of disenfranchising all felons, including those who, after realignment, serve time in jail.

And… CCC is involved! A group of criminal justice scholars, represented by yours truly, will be filing an amicus brief shortly in support of the lawsuit.

Here’s what is going on: As some readers may know, Californians imprisoned in state institutions, or on parole, are disenfranchised, but jail inmates and probationers have a right to vote. The realignment, as we know, puts many formerly imprisoned felons in county jails, for part or all of their sentence.

The legal language gives the right to vote to all inmates who are not “imprisoned”. Nonetheless, the California Secretary of State interprets the law as if the felons who will be doing time in jail should remain disenfranchised, and instructs the inmates accordingly. Several inmate rights organizations are now petitioning the Court of Appeals for an original writ, asking that voting rights be extended to everyone serving time in jail or on post-jail community supervision, whether felon or misdemeanant.

We are putting together an amicus brief on behalf of criminal justice scholars to support the petition. The main argument in the brief is that the Realignment was informed by a perspective of reentry and community-based corrections, and as such should encourage civic engagement. We also argue that jails, especially post-Realignment, are the ideal setting for encouraging reintegration through civic rights. The Realignment gives us the opportunity to make that argument on sound legal ground at least with regard to non-serious, non-violent, non-sexual offenders doing time in (or out on supervision from) county jails.

I will post the finished brief after filing. For now, here’s a link to the petition.

Examining Realignment: How Will We Know if it’s Working

Join the Association for Criminal Justice Research for its 75th Semi-Annual Conference March 22-23 at the Lion’s Gate Hotel in Sacramento (McClellan Campus). The theme is Examining Realignment: How Will We Know if it’s Working? Speakers include: Matt Cate, Diane Cummins, sheriffs, chief probation officers, DAs and judges, representatives from the LAO, PPIC, RAND, the Senate and many other organizations. For complete program information, scholarship applications, and registration, please contact Rebecca Blanton at rblanton@library.ca.gov.

New Paper on Realignment

Our friends at the Warren Institute have published a new paper by Rebecca Sullivan Silbert, titled Thinking Critically about Realignment in California, which you can read in full here. The nice thing about this publication is its clear and understandable language; Silbert breaks down technical complexities and makes this policy change much more accessible for all of us. Here are some highlights.

Silbert starts by delineating the difference between county jails and state prisons prior to realignment, including implications of jails’ smaller size, mandatory parole for state prisoners, and state costs stemming from the return to custody of parolees.

The paper then discusses overcrowding in state prisons, which it attributes to four factors: The gradual increase in sentencing, the labeling of more crime as violent and serious, the inability to cope with addictions and mental illness, and the mandatory parole mechanism with the potential return to prison for violations.

The main changes due to realignment are concisely discussed. They include serving one’s sentence in jail; split sentences between prison and jail, at judicial discretion;  having some state prisoners come under the auspices of community post-release programs in lieu of state parole; and sending parole violators to jail in lieu of prison.

The report then goes on to discuss the level of readiness of county institutions for the task of incarcerating more people and for longer terms, as well as the concerns about the medical and mental health needs of the new county inmates. Silbert then brings up concerns about “charging up” as well as about defense attorneys negotiating state prison because of the shorter post-sentence supervision implied.

The report does not discuss juvenile realignment, but there are plenty of other sources of information on that.

Aging Inmates Cared For by Other Inmates

Photo courtesy Todd Heisler for the New York Times.
This weekend’s New York Times features an article on the California Men’s Colony, where some inmates–some of them convicted killers–care for elderly inmates suffering from dementia. 
The story has a financial angle, too. Teaching some inmates to care for others is a cost-saving measure, in addition to its other virtues; but it is also a reminder of the expenses involved in incarcerating aging inmates, whose lifestyle makes them age faster than non-inmates, as found in this report from Vera Institute of Justice.
With many prisons already overcrowded and understaffed, inmates with dementia present an especially difficult challenge. They are expensive — medical costs for older inmates range from three to nine times as much as those for younger inmates. They must be protected from predatory prisoners. And because dementia makes them paranoid or confused, feelings exacerbated by the confines of prison, some attack staff members or other inmates, or unwittingly provoke fights by wandering into someone else’s cell.
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Props to Zafir Shaiq for the link.

Death Penalty Abolition Bill – to Ballot

SAFE California, a voter initiative to abolish the death penalty and replace it with life without parole, has succeeded in collecting the necessary 750,000 signatures to place the initiative on the ballot. So, come November 2012, California voters will have the opportunity to join Alaska, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.

Death in Corcoran


A recent episode of Democracy Now! features an inquiry into the death of Christian Gomez, 27, an inmate at Corcoran State Prison, who passed away six days after the beginning of the hunger strike. His sister, Yajaira Lopez, is calling for an investigation to what happened inside the prison and for conditions to be drastically improved. “When he did get [to Corcoran State Prison], he did explain to us that he was participating in a hunger strike,” Lopez explains. “They were fighting for fair treatment.”

Also interviewed is Carol Strickland of the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition and Prisoners With Children, who reports having heard that “people were not getting medical care who were on hunger strike and that that’s been something that we saw previously, as well, that the medical care is withdrawn, in many ways. Medications are stopped, and people are not being cared for adequately. And one has to ask, how can this man basically drop dead, you know, after only
a few days of a hunger strike, when he’s under medical care?”

Mendocino Snuffing Medical Marijuana Experiment

Yesterday’s NPR story on Mendocino County’s medical marijuana regulations is an especially good illustration of the practical effects of the conflict between federal, versus state and local, criminal laws.

“All of it left County Board Chairman John McCowen exasperated. ‘It means it’s going to go back underground. It’s going to become more dangerous. It’s going to become more profitable for the black marketers,’ he says. ‘I just don’t see that this represents progress.'”

Grool(TM)

What a terrific little recipe this is; a mix of fruit salad, an oatmealish-substance without oatmeal, and lots of kick from dried fruit. Makes for an excellent breakfast. Feeds four.

Two red apples
two oranges
five medjool dates
five dried figs
five dried plums
30 almonds
20 macadamia nuts
soymilk or almond milk (plain or vanilla flavored)
orange, apple or prune juice
cinnamon

Soak almonds, macadamia nuts, figs and plums in boiling water first thing in the morning.
Thinly chop apples and oranges. Combine in a bowl with a splash of soy or almond milk and a splash of juice. Strain nuts, figs and plums, and thinly chop or grind. Add to fruit in bowl and mix well until thing reaches cereal-like consistency. Add cinnamon to taste.

Anticipating a CCC Conference Sequel in 2013

We’re in the early stages of planning a sequel to our 2009 California Correctional Crisis conference. We expect to be covering the aftermath of Brown v. Plata, news about the death penalty, the drug war, sentencing alternatives, parole reform, and many other topics near and dear to the hearts of our readers. Like the previous conference, which was attended by hundreds of people and featured experts and policymakers from all over the country, this will be a huge public event, and now’s the time to provide your input as to the content you’d like to receive.

Concern in Pelican Bay: Increase in Solitary Confinement?

A disconcerting trend predicted on the San Francisco Bay View: The depopulation of prisons may be accompanied by an increase in the use of solitary confinement. The mostly-unreported hunger strike of September and October was in manifestation of inmate concerns with the change in security groups. Here’s more information, as per letters from Todd Ashker, the strike organizer:

Written Jan. 22, postmarked Jan. 27, 2012 – As soon as I first heard during our face to face meeting with former Undersecretary Kernan of CDCR’s plans to go to a “security threat group” (STG) system of classification, I recognized the very real potential for manipulation and abuse of such by certain factions in power positions in CDCR – e.g. CCPOA (California Correctional Peace Officers Association), gang unit etc. I immediately detailed my concerns to our attorneys – this was part of the reason for hunger strike no. 2 in September and October.


Briefly, here’s what I’m concerned about: Right at the time – in May – when the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the lower court’s prison population reduction order, in seeming response to our July hunger strike, CDCR unveils their STG plan. Here’s how it looks to me: The prison population reduction of 35,000-40,000 prisoners equals a potential loss of $2 billion in the yearly CDCR budget and the loss of approximately 7,000 CCPOA members. That’s the loss of a lot of union dues!


A clever way to offset some of this loss is to create a “new” security threat designation scheme – used in a lot of states, including Arizona, where it’s used to isolate all inmates labeled southern Hispanic from California – enabling CDCR to segregate a lot more men. Segregation costs nearly double general population and requires more staff.

Does any of our readers have more information about this?