The CDCR website reports on the Adult Parole Division’s Operation “Eagle Eye”, which consists of GPS monitoring of sex offenders in state fairs. We’ve alreadydiscussed California’s fascination with GPS monitoring, its promise and discontents. Here’s the newest in that vein:
Every sex offender on active parole has GPS monitoring as part of their supervision requirements. Any sex offender parolee who entered the fair zone set off an alarm notifying parole agents of their whereabouts. Once a notification was received, on-site CDCR parole agents tracked an offender’s movement and investigated if any law, parole violation or any public safety issue existed. During the various runs of the fairs, CDCR parole agents received numerous zone alerts, which culminated in parolee arrests for violations of special conditions of parole.
“When it comes to the supervision of sex offenders, we cannot and will not compromise public safety,” said Marvin Speed, District Parole Administrator. “Operation Eagle Eye was so beneficial to enhancing public safety that we will replicate the operation at other venues.”
Susan Atkins, member of the notorious Manson Family and participant in heinous and violent crimes, passed away at the age of 61. The L.A. Times features an excellent, detailed story on Atkins’ life, her crimes, and her time in prison, including the brain cancer that put an end to her life. Atkins served 38 years in prison, and in her last years lost a leg and became paralyzed as a result of her cancer. She was repeatedly denied parole in light of the severity of her crimes.
The Atkins case is an illustration of the important place retributivism still occupies in the public consciousness. Retribution was the only reason behind the denial of Atkins’ parole. She was terminally ill, fully (and apparently honestly) remorseful of her part in the Manson murders, and clearly incapable, physically and otherwise, of committing any further crime. In that sense, the Atkins case is a pure example of the power of such considerations.
The extent to which we defer to retributivism when dealing with a symbolic act that has colored much of our attitudes and imagination of crime in the late 1960s and beyond is a serious question, but I think the more interesting question is whether less extreme cases, involving less notorious acts, would merit the same deference to retributivism when making parole decisions. In the majority of cases, aging and health may give rise to considerations of declining risk and propensity.
Theories of life-course criminology have been quite a trendy field in criminology over the last few years. A good intro to this field is this great piece by Robert Sampson and John Laub. The nice thing about the article is its sensitivity to variation in types of crime, as well as to “turning points”, such as marriage, which dissuade some offenders from crime. Sampson and Laub also do a good job at describing the limitations of using life course criminology as a predictive tool for release. Nevertheless, the trends are thought provoking, especially when we are presented with veteran inmates such as Atkins, who have been in prison for decades and decades. Add to the mix the budgetary implications of treating the old and the infirm, and we can question the value of retributivism as an overriding, all-powerful ideology of incarceration and release.
Yesterday, the CDCR website featured a press release about the use of GPS monitoring to preclude sex offenders from attending the California State Fair. This is an addition to a series of reports about the increase in using GPS monitoring systems to track down parolees and offenders on bail. As one might expect, the focus of supervision has been, in the last years, on sex offenders (read this fascinating 2006 report by Jesse Janetta on GPS usage on San Diego sex offenders), but its uses exceed this category. A while ago, we reported the intent to use GPS systems to follow domestic abusers on restraining orders in California; according to the New York Times, this seems to be a growing trend in other states as well.
The appeal of electronic monitoring is quite understandable. The technology itself is readily available from commercial providers, and, once the system is set in place, the marginal cost of adding parolees to the pool of supervised subjects is not overwhelming. It is certainly less time consuming than adding one more file to the already overflowing docket of parole officers. However, it is important to keep in mind not only what GPS is, but also what it is not.
GPS is not the perfect community-based sentencing alternative. In our enthusiasm to seek out alternatives for incarceration, we should keep in mind that technology is just technology – nothing more, nothing less. In the absence of help with housing, education and vocational skills, GPS monitoring in itself will probably not significantly contribute to a decrease in recidivism.
GPS harbors the threat of expansion. In his 1985 book Visions of Social Control, Stanley Cohen warned us against the tendency of correctional systems to “widen the net” and expand. As surveillance becomes cheap and available, there are likely to be less restraints on including more people in the pool of supervised subjects. This is part of a larger trend, which Malcolm Feeley and Jonathan Simon identify as The New Penology: perceiving people in large aggregates, according to their level of risk.
In May 1840, Alexander Maconochie, a Scottish administrator with a Navy background, was appointed to run and manage Norfolk Island, . Norfolk was, at the time, one of the toughest correctional institutions in the British empire, housing hardened violent criminals who were sent to Penal Australia.
Maconochie’s correctional ideology was quite revolutionary for the time. Firm in his belief that punishment without reform was a socially empty act, he sought to generate a system under which convicts would earn their own freedom through “marks”, which they would earn for good behavior and hard work. The “marks” could be used to purchase luxuries beyond a diet of bread and water, or to purchase one’s freedom. The imprisonment experience, beginning with a period of solitude, would gradually loosen as convicts rose from level to level (or tighten back for those who “slipped”), to the point of being a closer simulation of life on the outside.
In his three years on the island, Maconochie had created a culture of learning and improvement within Norfolk. The library was stocked with books and prisoners would congregate, read and debate. Theatrical productions were considered. Musical instruments were ordered. Contrary to the previous practice of anonymous graves, headstones were placed on deceased prisoners’ graves. Queen Victoria’s birthday was celebrated as an island holiday, during which the prisoners were free to roam about the island.
Maconochie’s methods produced prodigious results with regard to recidivism rates. During his tenure at Norfolk, he discharged 920 of the twice-convicted offenders; by 1845, only twenty of them had been convicted again. However, these methods, which were initially endorsed by the Empire, became increasingly controversial. Critics complained that inmates were not receiving enough punishment in the initial statements and were horrified to hear about the island holiday. Under much political pressure, Maconochie was sent back to England in late 1843.
Revolutionary rehabilitative systems sometimes work, but they seem to be contingent upon strong personalities with strong convictions, and don’t tend to survive political pressure. Another example is Thomas Murton, a thoughtful administrator and criminologist who revolutionized the Arkansas prison with similar ideals in mind, and whose work at the prison is depicted in the fiction film Brubaker.
So, could such a system work in California prisons? One of the mechanisms considered for inmate release relies on good work credits. A National Conference on State Legislatures report examines the various mechanisms for credit earned. At least 31 states offer such credits in one form or other; usually, state legislation authorizes the correctional authorities to define which programs merit earned time. 21 states reward education and 18 states reward work (California provides credits for disaster relief work). Some states, like Nevada, Pennsylvania and Colorado, have actually expanded their reliance on such systems, due to budgetary difficulties (humonetarianism in action!). The amount of time earned (how many days of participation are required for one day of early release) also varies from state to state, and also, within a state, between different programs. California offers day-for-day in some programs, and others sometimes provide more than a 1:1 credit ratio.
Do these programs affect recidivism? Several evaluation studies done on good credit programs found no significant difference in recidivism rates between early released inmates and inmates who served the full term. In fact, one study even found a significantly lower recidivism rate for those who were released on good credits.
To read more about Maconochie, read Norval Morris’ terrific book Maconochie’s Gentlemen.
CA Assemblyman Paul Cook‘s legislative proposal – the newest version of sex offender legislation – died in committee. The novelty? Forbidding registered sex offenders whose offense included a child under 16 to sell ice cream. As is often the case with this sort of bill, it is presented as prompted by a particular incident, reported on Cook’s website, where “the Megan’s Law database revealed that a local ice cream truck driver was a registered sex offender”.
Current law says a registered sex offender whose offense involved a child under 16 cannot work “directly and in an unaccompanied setting with minor children on more than an incidental and occasional basis.”
“Where is the weakness in that statute that … you believe we’re going to have registered sex offenders selling ice cream to our children?” Leno asked Cook Monday during a committee hearing. “I don’t think there’s any problem with the current statute.”
But Cook said that leaves some ambiguity because an ice cream vendor isn’t working with children in the same way as a day care worker.
“Are you working with kids, or are you selling ice cream?” he said. “If you’re working with kids, then prevailing law applies. But if you’re selling ice cream, you’re selling ice cream to everybody.”
Cook said the issue is particularly important because children are attracted to ice cream trucks and tend to trust those who operate them.
Sen. Roderick Wright, D-Inglewood, who voted for the bill, said an ice cream vendor can build a relationship with a child that can later lead to exploitation or an attack.
. . .
Leno called Cook’s bill “a solution in search of a problem.”
In response to Leno’s question whether there were actual examples of sex offenders operating the trucks, Cook mentioned the case that allegedly inspired the bill, but Riverside County Sheriff’s officials denied having heard of the situation. Read more at The Sun.
I strongly recommend reading the commentary on Larry Corcoran’s panicked words on the Chron yesterday, from the good folks over at the Prison Movement Blog. Just to whet your appetite, Corcoran, spokesman for CCPOA, said yesterday:
“This short-term savings is going to have long-term costs, and the costs will be measured, unfortunately, in lives. . . I anticipate some incredibly sensational crime committed by an individual that should have been incarcerated.”
Now, granted, I entirely agree that mass releases are a very bad short-term solution for a big problem. Releasing people without skills or support programs into an abysmal job market is an extremely faulty strategy. Nevertheless, one would hope that the mass-released folks would not be the ones committing “sensational crimes”, nor is it ever a good idea to focus on those as the catalysts of public policy. Our pals at Prison Movement dissect this better than I could, pointing out inaccuracies, lack of logic, and moral hysteria, but I’ll just add this: at a time when public opinion is probably swaying away from moral panics toward cost-benefit analysis, I doubt this will win many hearts. Corcoran may be speaking the language of yesterday to an audience facing today’s budget shortages.
A key assumption underlying the discourse of correctional policies has been that the ever-increasing sentences, changes in trial structure, and criminalization, represent the will of the public. This is a particularly strong argument in the case of California, since a substantial amount of our correctional reforms occur through voter initiatives. It’s probably time to ask ourselves whether the assumption that Californians are punitive, and desire these reforms, is true.
On its face, the assumption seems to be supported by some anecdotal evidence. In the last elections, Californians passed Proposition 9, which, in addition to strengthening the victim’s position in the criminal process, worsens the inmate’s position in parole hearings (by increasing pre-parole imprisonment periods and diminishing the scope of the right to counsel); while these particular provisions have not been incorporated yet into law, through Judge Karlton’s intervention, they were still elected as “the will of the people”. They also rejected Proposition 5, which promised drug treatment and various diversion options for non-violent drug offenders. Anecdotal evidence also seems to support an assumption of punitiveness; it is enough to glance at the comments at SFGate.com to be confronted with anger about crime, which translates itself into demands for more punitiveness. But is this really true? How does one systematically measure punitiveness? And, more importantly, how do we differentiate between public punitiveness and the initiative of lobbyists, interest groups, and politicians?
The first thing to ask ourselves is whether this is, indeed, a particularly punitive period in our history. While many influential thinkers, such as David Garland, Stanley Cohen, and Jonathan Simon, characterize our times as being increasingly punitive, others disagree. As Roger Matthews reminds us, there also have been examples to the contrary. Think, in the California context, of the recent developments regarding the possibility of decriminalizing marijuana, or on the considerations of incarceration options.
The next step is trying to figure out whether people are particularly punitive, and if so, which factors predict punitiveness. We don’t know much about the punitiveness of Californians in particular, but research conducted elsewhere in the States and in the world suggests that public punitiveness is an empirically complex issue.
Shadd Maruna and Anna King, who conducted a survey on the British public, found that factors such as concerns about the economy and the state of ‘the youth today’ account for a substantial proportion of the effect of actual crime concerns on punitiveness. On the other hand, crime-related factors, such as victimization experiences or anxieties about crime did not appear to predict punitiveness. Similar trends, connecting punitiveness with strong emotions or sentiments, were found by Devon Johnson, who used U.S. national survey data. Her work shows that anger about crime is a significant predictor of punitive attitudes, after controlling for other factors such as racial prejudice, fear of crime, causal attributions for criminal behavior, and political ideology. Similarly, in a national survey study, Sherwood Zimmerman, David van Alstyne and Christopher Dunn found considerably punitive trends; they then compared the hypothetical outcomes to a recent conviction cohort from New York State, and found that, had the public’s will been faithfully applied to actual convictions, the additional correctional costs would have been very high.
Emotion-driven opinions about punishment are, of course, particularly strong regarding issues like the death penalty. Mona Lynch’s study of pro-death penalty discourse on the internet finds that the death penalty is framed as a symbol of justice, a triumph of sorts of the good (the innocent victim) and the evil (the capital murderer). This essentialist perspective eliminates all consideration of costs, let along empathy for the offender.
Some studies, however, have found less punitive outcomes, particularly by tweaking the methodology of punitiveness surveys. Douglas Thomson and Anthony Ragona have critiqued standard punitiveness surveys, arguing that these generally do not ask respondents to consider contingenciessuch as offense circumstances, behavioral content of varioussentences, or fiscal cost differentials. This means that the public will necessarily appear to be more punitive than judges, because they are not faced with the full spectrum of judicial considerations, nor are they offered information about the relativefiscal costs of current and alternative sentencing practices.Thomson and Ragona, who conducted an Illinois survey incorporating issues of costs found that, on several dimensions,the public turned out to be less vengeful than typically portrayed in publicopinion poll and media accounts, notably in its openness to community sentences. I find this information particularly interesting, because it suggests, in the spirit of humonetarianism, that a discourse of scarcity has the potential to decrease public punitiveness. It is useful, in this context, to remember the rejection of Proposition 6, which suggested extremely punitive measures against juveniles and gang members; Prop 6 was mostly attacked for its high financial costs.
Neville Blampied and Elizabeth Kahan, who conducted a survey study in New Zealand, found creativity and openness to alternative punishments among community members asked about responses to juvenile noncompliance. The outcomes here may have been less punitive because of the case study, but they may also reflect cultural differences between the U.S. and New Zealand, which has been very open to juvenile justice reforms, and uses family group conferences almost to the exclusion of juvenile courts. The last important question is whether public punitiveness – if, indeed, it exists – is the reason for punitive policies. As Katherine Beckett argues in her beautiful book Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics, these policies do not originate with the public. She carefully timelines punitive initiatives, demonstrating how public opinion is being swayed by politicians and the media. In states like California, where much public policy is made directly by the public, it is important to examine who stands behind punitive initiatives and how these campaigns are being run.
(all images by Tom McGee; click on graphics for clearer, larger image)
One of our readers, Thomas McGee, who worked for many years in the Youth Authority, has given some serious consideration to questions of risk assessment associated with issues such as the Lovell Mixon case. He writes:
Thank you for your blog, California Correctional Crisis. Your posts have been especially helpful.
I am sending this email, rather than posting a comment, because I wanted to enclose an attachment, which was prepared using Excel. It is a chart depicting a proposed Deprivation Decision-Making System. I believe that sentencing should be put in this broader context. You will see that it makes provision for both determinate and indeterminate courses of action. The Mixon matter you have been writing about is a good example of why something like this is necessary. Of course, I do not have access to his case history, but since he was classified as a high-control parolee, there must have been evidence that he was a high risk. Under the system I propose, Mr. Mixon would have completed the accountability part of his Deprivation Plan. But he would not have been moved to a lower level of restraint, because he had a high level of risk. I know that risk determinations are contentious, but risk is a fact of life. Insurance companies deal with it all the time. It is not possible to predict with complete certain ty who will commit another crime, or what kind. But it is possible to estimate the probability that a person will recidivate,within a probability range. Policy makers have to decide how much risk is acceptable. If risk determinations do not reach a legally acceptable standard, then lets say so and act accordingly, rather than hiding this in some kind of sentencing double-talk. Just one more point; I think it is ridiculous to ask judges to consider risk at the time of sentencing. Risk changes. Who can say today what an offender’s risk will be five years from now. A Risk Control Board should make periodic risk determinations of this kind. Parole Boards as we knowthem are not equipped for this task.
I would appreciate any comments you may have about the enclosure, and these comments. Again, thanks for the blog.
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One of the interesting things about Tom’s model is that it incorporates quite a multifaceted perspective on offenders and their motivations. One key dilemma in modeling and predicting human behavior has to do with the difficult trade-off between accuracy and simplicity. That is, the more complex the model is , the more accurately it can predict risk, but the more difficult it will be to apply. More on this in future posts.
Over at Governing Through Crime, Jonathan Simon offers some thoughts on the tragic murder of Oakland police officers, which he sees as an opportunity to examine our broken parole system. Simon spoke at our conference recently, addressing the issue of parole and dangerousness, so his thoughts on this instance, which, in hindsight, is all about dangerousness and public safety, are particularly illuminating.
As the day’s panels progressed, it became quite clear that every step of the correctional process was impacted not only by what happened earlier, but also by what happened later. Parole violations, and parole risks, are enormously important considerations for prison population size; also, the phrase “public safety” had so far remained unexamined. Our panelists for the Dangerousness, Risk, and Release panel were going to help us unpack and question the assumptions and considerations underlying our release policies.
Professor Jonathan Simon started by drawing an intriguing analogy between our risk assessment process for crime and for cancer. Why are we so willing to examine evidence-based, empirically tested risk rates for the latter, while at the same time keeping the real risk levels for the former clouded in a mist of public fear? A brief look at the genealogy of this fear revealed our collective “stranger danger”, generated gradually by Manson and other iconic fear figures, as well as by presidential assassinations. This public fear was generated and perpetuated by government officials of all stripes; a brief look at republican and democrat governors revealed their unified position on issues of public safety. The wall-to-wall opposition to the passage of Prop 5, led by Schwarzenegger and supported by others, was a good demonstration of what Mark Leno had said earlier in the day: no one, regardless of political association, wants to appear soft on crime.
Simon highlighted four important points in respect to our culture of fear. First, he said, risk assessment is a very difficult thing to do. Violence is highly situational, rather than an individual’s pesronal trait. Second, while CDCR asks for increased budget to lock up Level IV inmates, the decision to classify inmates as Level IV goes unexamined, and it may well be that this is yet another example of risk overestimation. Third, we must not forget that the supposedly neutral “risk factors” always carry with them social factors, such as race and class, and by doing so, perpetuate stereotypes and generate more demographic divides; and, finally, mass incarceration itself interacts with the broader problem. The mention of feeble, elderly lifers on breathalyzers as “public risks” denied parole was nothing short of absurd. Instead, suggested Simon, why not direct our public safety concerns toward more urgent, and less stigmatizing, needs, such as training our prisoners to help with the very real public risks posed by disasters such as Katrina? Our labeling of people who helped others during the hurricane as potential looters and rapists is very telling of our tendency to allow moral panics about crime cloud the real sources of concern.
For some, however, objections to release are based on a much more private threat to Safety. Shadia Merukeb, a victim consultant with the Alameda County DA’s office, provided the victims’ perspectives on parole. A great part of the problem for victims, she explained, consists of a lack of familiarity with a difficult system, which does not conform to what victims expect based on their crime-TV experiences. Long before the passage of Prop 9, Alameda County provided rights to victims, but without assistance these often went unutilized. The challenges a victim faces in terms of presence in parole hearings range from simple issues of transportation to far away prisons (fees, schedules, and child care!) to issues of fear and concern; often, the victim has to encounter the offender at rather close range, or wait with the offender’s family in the waiting room for the parole hearing. Under these circumstances, the victim advocates fill in the gaps for DAs and parole agents who are unable to provide them with the unique assistance that they require.
The parolees’ perspective was provided by Robin Rederford, community liaison for Legal Services for Prisoners with Children. The problem with release, explained Rederford, lies in releasing people completely unprepared for life on the outside, and with the same substance abuse and unemployability issues they went into prison with in the first place. The return home becomes a frightening prospect when one does not have a supportive family outside; having been humiliated and dehumanized, one has to rebuild one’s life with precious little in the way of resources. Some housing programs actually become unavailable to those with criminal convictions. The concern with public safety, said Rederford, might be greatly alleviated if people were offered services and opportunities for employment which would preclude them from parole violations.
Finally, we heard the CDCR’s perspective on parole reform from Evelyn Lara-Lowe, Deputy Regional Administrator for Parole. She assured us (and I believe her!) that the CDCR has no interest in bringing people back into prison. The issue of general parole is a legal given, which CDCR has to work with; she was willing to concede that there are people on parole who do not need to be under supervision. Ironically, those are the people who actually complete parole without violations. The problem is, said Lara-Lowe, lack of resources. Parole agents, and professional staff, are extremely busy and overloaded; support needs to come from the community, which is often inhospitable to formerly incarcerated people. Also, it is problematic to provide the same level of services in remote places with a relatively small parolee population.
The questions from the audience were absolutely fantastic. We got to discuss parole caseload, as well as to question the link between victimhood and punitiveness. One commentator, a psychiatrist for CDCR, said she couldn’t think of a better way to make people dangerousness and unsafe than to house them in a CDCR prison.
