Realignment in Alameda

Read this interesting interview with David Muhammad, the Chief Probational Officer for Alameda County. Seems like his heart is in the right place, and he’s doing some serious thinking on how to make this work. This can be a big success if agencies follow Muhammad’s example, rather than be pulled into the realignment plan kicking and screaming.

On October 1, California will move 848 prisoners from state prisons to Alameda County jails to finish their sentences. The county anticipates an additional 47 new inmates each month after that.
Also, any low-level parolee from Alameda County who violates their parole will go to county jail instead of back to the state prison where they served their sentence.
Once realignment is in full swing, the county expects 267 more people in jail on any given day than are serving time there today.


. . . 


Sergeant J.D. Nelson of the Alameda County Sherriff’s department said they have the space for the new prisoners in county jail. But they still need the additional state funds for new inmates. “You need to be provided with money,” he said, “to feed and clothe them.”
Eventually, Muhammad’s department expects to supervise and serve an estimated 1,900 new cases.
“I hope that it’s actually huge — that we are doing a much, much better job than the State had been doing,” said Muhammad.
The state, he added, has focused too much on incarceration instead of rehabilitation.
Muhammad wants to shift the focus towards rehabilitation by changing the county’s risk assessment system. When a person is first released to the probation department, officers there assess their likelihood to commit another crime. Probation officers then give the most attention to the people who are at the highest risk.
While this system is good in theory, Muhammad said, they are incorrectly assessing people. Under the current system, someone likely to commit 18 small thefts will score the same as someone likely to commit armed robbery – and will be supervised accordingly.
A study by The Pew Center for the States, however, concludes that low-risk people do better with less supervision.
For example, low-risk people are more likely to have a job, Muhammad said, but if they have to go to the probation office during working hours to meet with a probation officer once a week, they are more likely to lose that job.
Muhammad identified another crucial area where the Alameda County probation can improve – he wants to get the department to the point where each probation officer supervises 50 people.
“Right now,” he said, “the ratio is all over the place.”
Currently 15,000 people are on probation in Alameda County. Eleven thousand of them don’t have probation officers because of a lack of staffing and funding.
AB 109 will provide some of that funding.
“I actually see this as an opportunity where we can fix everything at once,” Muhammad said.

Book Review: The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

A couple of months ago I attended a dinner fundraiser by the American Friends Service Committee and had the pleasure of hearing Michelle Alexander speak about her book (full video of the speech, as well as an interview with Alexander, available here.) I immediately bought a copy of the book and was very much looking forward to reading it. It did not disappoint, and while its basic argument is not novel, the book presents it in a compelling, engaged way.

The New Jim Crow is an attempt to take the prison-slavery comparison, often made as hyperbole, seriously. In order to do so, the book begins by providing a basic and concise introduction to race relations in the United States before, during, and after slavery. Readers unfamiliar with the post-reconstruction nadir of American race relations would do well to examine the particulars of life at the time, because, as Alexander demonstrates, much of the racial discrimination we see today through the correctional system has its roots in the disenfranchisement and separation of those days. Simply put, in the aftermath of the Civil War, the seeds were planted for a thriving system of discrimination and segregation that would utilize very similar methods to create a caste system, originally based on the color of one’s skin, and now using one’s status as a felon as proxy for said color.

The following two chapters provide a basic summary of the criminal process, relying for the most part on Supreme Court cases, and demonstrating how racial biases permeate the process from policing till release from prison. Readers with legal and socio-legal backgrounds may find these chapters somewhat oversimplified and spot some inaccuracies, but for a general audience this overview clearly communicates the message: A seemingly colorblind system is loaded with opportunities for discretion that generates the overrepresentation of African American men in the criminal process, and by exposing them in vast disproportion to this horrifying experience, generates an underclass deprived of a share in American conformity.

Alexander sets out to show that the role of race in the criminal process and in mass incarceration is not accidental. This argument, in itself, is not new. In her 1999 book Making Crime Pay, Katherine Beckett provides a full analysis of the political campaigns of the late 1960s and clearly shows how Nixon, and other candidates, relied on fear of crime and rising crime rates to confront, head on, the civil rights movement of the 1960s. The Warren Court’s lenient approach to defendants, and its tendency to generate bright-line rules limiting the discretionary powers of the police and prosecution, became the enemy, and was a thinly-veiled foil for the ‘real’ enemy, race inequality. Alexander’s book, however, makes this argument more accessible to the general public. By substituting crime for race, Nixonian politics succeeded in combating their real enemy, while maintaining a façade of race-neutrality.

My favorite chapters of the book are the last ones, in which Alexander takes on the broader implications for society of a caste system driven by crime control. She discusses the impact of criminal record and inmate disenfranchisement on a complete alienation of the African-American community from the political process and from access to basic necessities and rights. And, she sounds a loud wake-up alarm to those who have basic sympathy to the idea of criminal justice reform and race equality but who may not have made the connection explicitly. The ideal audience for this book, whom Alexander mentions in her introduction, would be folks who think that the comparison between Jim Crow and mass incarceration is merely rhetorical hyperbole. Upon reading this book, they may be convinced otherwise.

Moving from Tough and Cheap to Lenient and Cheap: Why Conservative States are Ahead of the Curve

Emily Luhrs from the CJCJ posted a really great think piece today. Taking on the ACLU point on the bipartisanism of criminal justice reform, they point out that conservative states have had a much easier time closing down prisons and decrowding institutions than, say, California.

Texas prisons, for example, went from a projected increase of 17,000 new prison beds in 2007 to below capacity in 2011, paving the way for an unprecedented state prison closure this year. The reforms have not only reduced system-swelling, but have led to the desired goal of increased safety. In the years following the reform efforts, crime rates have continued to drop more than the year before. In fact, research proves longer sentences have no effect on deterring future crime.


. . .


While California often leads the country with progressive reform efforts, it is not leading the way on the issue of incarceration. The same issues that are bloating California’s prison population were identified in previously prison-reliant states like Texas, providing hope that California can seek effective rehabilitative options as the state begins to reduce its prison population. CJCJ has long advocated for smart alternatives to incarceration and if Texas can close prisons, maybe California can too.

Here’s my take on the phenomenon Luhrs highlights: This is all about humanitarianism. Clearly, the dominant, if not only, factor at operation here is the wish to cut costs, and it’s the only factor that has succeeded in reversing the punitive pendulum. Conservative states like Texas and Arizona have a distinct edge over California in doing so, because traditionally, both of these penal systems have operated on the cheap. In fact, as Mona Lynch explains in her terrific book Sunbelt Justice, during the big Rehabilitation Years in California (before the 1970s brought disillusionment with that ideal), Texas and Arizona boasted farm/plantation models that were self-sufficient and did things on the tough and cheap. So, operating on the cheap is not a new consideration in these states. They’ve always done corrections with less. They are simply doing less with less. Here in CA, on the other hand, savings and corrections are not concepts that have traditionally gone hand in hand. We’ve done everything–incarceration, parole, probation, death row–on a mammoth scale and are used to decades of immense expenditure on corrections. That mindset may be even more difficult to change than the punitive mindset. The approach that corrections, by definition, have to be expensive, has always been part of the Californian paradigm, and has always been alien to the Texan and Arizonian paradigms.

So, as Californians, we need to learn how to be two things that we haven’t traditionally excelled at: Being lenient and being thrifty. Ironically, despite Three Strikes and Marsy’s Law and determinate sentencing and all that, we have a better track record with the former than with the latter. But reality is forcing us to acknowledge that and seeking more financial wisdom with corrections, and this will guide us on the right path with regard to punitivism.

PlataWatch: CDCR to Begin Population Reduction, Albeit Behind Schedule

CaliforniaWatch (via Sara at the Prison Law Blog) reports:

The court’s first benchmark orders the corrections department to lower it prisoner population to 167 percent of capacity by Dec. 27. The department says it expects to reach that benchmark by Jan. 27, 2012.


Corrections department spokesman Oscar Hidalgo said the delay is necessary to allow the department to get a better estimate of the state’s prisoner population.


In a declaration in support of Wednesday’s filing, Jay Atkinson, the department’s acting deputy director of the Office of Research, said:


“CDCR forecasts population levels by using a simulation model, which employs data trends and projected new admissions, to determine how long the new admissions will stay, the number of offenders who will be returned to prison, and how long they and the current inmates will stay. …This simulation is repeated for each individual inmate until the total population is projected. After the Fall 2011 projection is completed, staff in the Office of Research will project the impact on CDCR’s population that Assembly Bill 109, the realignment legislation, will have.”

The decrowding process is being executed pursuant to the Realignment law. Stay tuned in the next months for a blow-by-blow followup on the decrowding process.

On Institutional Responsibility and Overcrowding

This week I traveled in Vancouver Island, BC. In Victoria, I was handed the local newspaper, the Times Colonist, which on Page 4 (!) reported of a prison protest in the Wilkinson Road Jail.

A 30-prisoner standoff broke out in the Wilkinson Road jail Thursday night after prisoners decided an inmate had been denied hospitalization and proper medication.


The inmate has liver cancer and hepatitis C, said Camille Davis, whose boyfriend, Samuel McGrath, is in the same unit as the sick prisoner.


Around 9 p.m., 30 inmates refused to be locked up because they said the issue wasn’t being addressed, said Dean Purdy, a corrections officer supervisor and chairman of the Corrections and Sheriffs Service for the B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union. The B.C. Corrections Branch could not be reached for comment.


The result was a 25-minute standoff by the 30 inmates, who wanted the ailing prisoner to be sent to hospital, said Davis.


After the standoff, the sick prisoner was taken to hospital.

It would be rather simplistic to ascribe the differences between this coverage of this incident to the CA newspaper coverage of the Pelican Bay hunger strike, but nonetheless, I can’t resist noticing four peculiar things:

1) Page 4? This Victoria Jail is, apparently, not invisible to the public.

2) Coverage is decidedly sympathetic to the inmates and reports of their success. Note – this is a protest, not a “riot”, and the beginning of the story expands on the inmate’s medical condition and the urgent need to hospitalize him.

3) The first interviewee is the girlfriend of one of the inmates. I don’t recall seeing any CA newspaper being the least bit attentive to inmate families.

And, 4) – the big shocker – here’s what the correctional authority had to say about the protest:

“We’re severely overcrowded and it only stands to reason that when prisoners are incarcerated under these conditions, stress and agitation levels of inmates are going to be very high.”


Wilkinson and eight other provincial jails are operating at 180 per cent of capacity, said Purdy.


He said the overcrowding increases the risk of violent behaviour, escape and deteriorating working conditions for correctional officers.


Overcrowding promotes a “mob-like mentality,” he said. “It’s a recipe for disaster.”

Does anyone recall a current holder of a correctional position in the US offering such mild commentary about an inmate protest?

Making Sentencing Reform a Priority

Sign this ACLU-California petition at
https://secure.aclu.org/site/SPageNavigator/CN_petition

Save Money and Increase Public Safety

To Governor Brown, Senate President Steinberg and Assembly Speaker Perez:

As you work to solve the long-term budget deficit, please make sentencing reform a top priority. Sentencing reform will help balance the budget, balance our priorities, and balance the scales of justice.

Two simple sentencing reforms would save California taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars annually:

  1. Make possession of small amounts of drugs a misdemeanor instead of a felony.
  2. Make low-level, non-violent property offenses misdemeanors instead of felonies.

These two reforms fit with your realignment plan by keeping state prison for violent and serious offenses. But they provide additional benefits – lowering court costs, shortening sentences and saving both state and local dollars that can be used for public safety, drug treatment, social services and public schools and universities.

You have the power to bring back balance to the State of California.

Leveraging Brown v. Plata to Achieve Correctional Health? Humonetarianism from Vera’s Michael Jacobson

Today’s Bloomberg News features a piece by Michael Jacobson of the Vera Institute of Justice, who is making points akin to the ones we made in the aftermath of Brown v. Plata. Yes, the decision was limited to the issue of medical services, but it is a grand opportunity to heal California’s broken corrections. Here are his operative suggestions:

Fortunately, there is a way to deal with this influx safely and humanely. Over the past three decades, jurisdictions across the U.S. have ensured that only those who present a genuine threat to public safety fill prison beds, while those who can thrive with supervision and services in the community get the help they need. California officials can begin emulating three steps, starting immediately:
— Statistical analysis has made it possible to accurately predict who is likely to commit new crimes and who isn’t. California officials, especially at the county level, should put in place risk assessment instruments based on this data to decide who needs to be held and who can be supervised safely in the community. Research has shown that overpunishing offenders who present little risk will in many cases turn them into real threats to public safety. Scarce taxpayer dollars need to be used explicitly for strategies and programs that we know will reduce crime, and not increase it.
— Invest in a network of community-based services that can serve those released under supervision, including formerly incarcerated people. Workforce development programs or drug treatment can go a long way toward ensuring that people can remain safely in the community. For instance, in a multiyear evaluation of the Center for Employment Opportunities, a transitional jobs program for former prisoners based in New York City, the nonpartisan education and social policy research organization MDRC found significant drops in recidivism, with the strongest reductions for former prisoners who are at the highest risk.
— Strapped local officials should resist the understandable temptation to use the money that accompanies redirected inmates and parolees for other needed programs, including general services that are being cut. Although public safety need not be as expensive as we currently make it, it can’t be done on the cheap. Besides, the Justice Reinvestment Initiative of the Department of Justice is designed to show that a shift in spending from incarceration to policies like those listed above actually makes communities safer.

As we argued elsewhere, one of the dangers of cost-oriented discourse is its fallacies in encouraging long-term health of the correctional system and its proclivity toward panicky, immediate solutions. The key to leveraging the cost argument to achieve correctional health is to think smarter, not faster.

Pelican Bay Inmates to Begin Hunger Strike on July 1st

Prisoners to Begin Hunger Strike on July 1st in Pelican Bay State Prison (from www.indybay.org)

Prisoners in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City, California announced that they are beginning an indefinite hunger strike on July 1st to protest the conditions of their imprisonment, which they say are cruel and inhumane. An online petition has been started by supporters of the strikers. While noting that the hunger strike is being “organized by prisoners in an unusual show of racial unity,” five key demands are listed by California Prison Focus: (http://www.prisons.org/)

1) Eliminate group punishments; 2) Abolish the debriefing policy and modify active/inactive gang status criteria; 3) Comply with the recommendations of the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in Prisons (2006) regarding an end to long term solitary confinement; 4) Provide adequate food; 5) Expand and provide constructive programs and privileges for indefinite SHU inmates.

The CA Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation prides itself on Pelican Bay being “the end of the line,” and is part of a continuation since the 1960s of prisons using solitary confinement as a main tactic to crush rebellion and resistance.

Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity states, “As anti-authoritarians and anarchists, this is a crucial moment to show our solidarity with those on the inside who are ready to die in their fight for dignity and the most basic necessities of life that the state continues to deny. This will be the third major hunger strike in a US prison in the past year and those of us fighting on the outside need to make a visible show of support for this wave of prisoner-led organizing.”

—

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

Vowing to die, if necessary, inmates at the dreaded “SHU” section of California’s Pelican Bay prison begin a hunger strike on July 1. “Like the strike by inmates in Georgia’s prison system late last year, the Pelican Bay protest cuts across racial lines.” The core issue: a brutal, soul-killing policy of solitary confinement and other deprivations aimed at turning every inmate into a snitch on everyone else.

Pelican Bay: Hunger Strike in Super-Max

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“Inmate organizers say prisoners have been subjected to solitary and a whole range of deprivations for ten, twenty, even forty years.”

On Friday, July 1st, between 50 and 100 men at the Security Housing Unit of California’s infamous Pelican Bay prison go on hunger strike to protest cruel and unusual punishment. It is a punishment inflicted, primarily, on their minds. At the heart of the protest is solitary confinement, the barbaric torture that deprives prisoners of contact with fellow human beings, condemning them to a kind of “social death” – some for decades.

This is the “dark side” of the American repressive arsenal that Vice President Dick Cheney was so happy to unleash as a weapon in the so-called War on Terror: the stripping down of captive people through methodical deprivation of everything that makes them human. Yet these excruciating mind-destruction techniques are routinely deployed on the domestic front, in the American prison gulag, at places like Pelican Bay.

Inmate organizers say prisoners have been subjected to solitary and a whole range of deprivations for ten, twenty, even forty years. They are most incensed at the policy euphemistically called “debriefing,” in which inmates are pressured to confess to every crime they have ever committed in life. They are then expected to inform on other prisoners, their crimes, conversations and gang affiliations. This information – whether true or false – is then used to throw fellow inmates into the special Hell of solitary confinement. It is a brutal, sadistic cycle of degradation, a bizarre world in which everyone is compelled to “snitch” on everyone else. Prisoners are routinely given indeterminate solitary on the mere word of an informer. The worst section of the SHU is called the “short corridor,” where 200 men languish in the deepest isolation. These are the men at the center of the hunger strike.

“It is a brutal, sadistic cycle of degradation, a bizarre world in which everyone is compelled to ‘snitch’ on everyone else.”

One of them is named Mutope Duguma, formerly known as James Crawford. The “call” for the hunger strike was put out under Duguma’s signature. It asks that “all prisoners throughout the State of California who have been suffering injustices in General Population, Administrative Segregation and solitary confinement…join in our peaceful strike to put a stop to the blatant violations of prisoners’ civil/human rights.” Like the strike by inmates in Georgia’s prison system late last year, the Pelican Bay protest cuts across racial lines, involving, in the prisoners’ words, “united New Afrikans, Whites, Northern and Southern Mexicans, and others.” The organizers warn inmates to “beware of agitators, provocateurs, and obstructionists” among the prisoner population.

The Pelican Bay hunger strikers vow to die, if necessary, in a struggle against dehumanization. In the San Francisco Bay area, supporters from the outside have formed Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity (prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity@gmail.com), to let the inmates know that they are not alone, and “to make sure their voices are heard outside of prison.”

From the inside, inmate Gabriel Huerta reminds us that “Using indeterminate total lock down to extract confessions is torture by international standards as is the use of prolonged solitary confinement.” This is a global, human rights issue.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.