Roughly 200,000 US veterans are in prison or jail, many of them there because of substance abuse or mental health issues, according to a new report released Wednesday.

A new program based in Vancouver,B.C.

Yesterday, we were approached at our movable art display, voter registration and information kiosk in Washington, DC by a policy advisor for a reputable candidate for governor in the state of Georgia. He wants to create a platform for his candidate that will incorporate realistic ideas for prison and re-entry improvements. If you have any ideas for him, please send them to us and we will pass them along. He particularly wants to hear from people who have had experience with the prison system/re-entry process in Georgia. Please email us at staff@prisonsfoundation.org  

"The Safe Streets Arts Foundation, incorporating both the Prisons Foundation and the Victims Foundation, is proud to sponsor the annual From-Prison-to-The-Stage Show at the Kennedy Center and the Prison Art Gallery at 1600 K Street. NW, Suite 501, Washington, DC, three blocks from the White House."

The losers in New York state's effort to reform its draconian Rockefeller drug laws, mainly district attorneys and Republican legislators, made a last-ditch effort this week to scuttle part of the

US Sen.

A panel of federal judges charged with overseeing the California prison system tentatively ruled Monday that the state must release tens of thousands of inmates from its swollen prison population t

The incoming Obama administration has posted its agenda online at the White House web site Whitehouse.gov.

As part of the $825 billion economic stimulus bill passed by the House last week, the Democratic Party leadership and the Obama administration included

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With drug strategies and welfare reform plans in the British Isles moving toward pushing drug users into treatment and from treatment into the workplace, the British government is going to have to

The political landscape in Washington, DC, is undergoing a dramatic shift as the Democratic tide rolls in, and, after eight years of drug war status quo under the Republicans, drug reformers are no

With the presidential election now less than a month away, Democratic candidate Barack Obama appears poised for victory, according to the m

Join Congressional Members, staff, and more than 200 organizations composed of a broad spectrum of leaders representing state and local government, law enforcement, corrections, and courts to celebrate this momentous occasion.

Three years after it was first introduced, the Senate Tuesday evening passed the Second Chance Act, a measure

[Courtesy of The Sentencing Project]

Dear Friends,
     

     The Senate passed the Second Chance Act of 2007 late Tuesday, which will ease the re-entry process for individuals leaving prison by providing funding for prisoner mentoring programs, job training and rehabilitative treatment. The legislation, introduced in the Senate by Sens. Joseph Biden (D-DE), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Sam Brownback (R-KS), now awaits approval by President Bush - who in his 2004 State of the Union address advocated for a $300 million Prisoner Re-entry Initiative.  

     The legislation was passed by a voice vote after the Senate adopted a concurrent resolution, H Con Res 270, which included minor changes to the measure. The U.S. House of Representatives voted 347 to 62 to pass the Second Chance Act of 2007 in November.

     The Second Chance Act will help provide necessary services to the nearly 700,000 people leaving prison each year by increasing funding designed to protect public safety and reduce recidivism rates. The bill's provisions authorize $362 million to expand assistance for people currently incarcerated, those returning to their communities after incarceration, and children with parents in prison. The services to be funded under the bill include:

• mentoring programs for adults and juveniles leaving prison;
• drug treatment during and after incarceration, including family-based treatment for incarcerated parents;
• education and job training in prison;
• alternatives to incarceration for parents convicted of non-violent drug offenses;
• supportive programming for children of incarcerated parents; and early release for certain elderly prisoners convicted of non-violent offenses.

     The reform bill was widely supported by civil rights, criminal justice, law enforcement and religious organizations and had broad bipartisan support in both the Senate and House of Representatives.

Usually, drug warriors at least pay lip service to the idea that we're supposed to be helping people recover from addiction. Drug war supporters frequently feign compassion by touting their support for drug treatment, all the while defending policies that trash the lives of users and make recovery that much harder.

But today, I found a drug warrior that's willing to say what the rest are probably thinking. His name is Wayne C. Williams and he's been putting drug users in jail for 32 years. Williams was so disturbed by an op-ed from former cop/drug policy reformer Howard Wooldridge that he wrote a crazy letter to the Amarillo Globe News complaining that drug addicts don't get punished enough:

Too many people use rehabilitation as a way to stay out of jail or prison.

A person hooked on drugs won't get clean for his family, but only when he hits rock bottom and wants help for himself.

Put addicts in jail where they belong and ease up on the probation, which usually is a joke in itself. [Amarillo.com]

Rarely does one find the sheer cruelty of the drug war expressed with such unabashed self-righteousness. This man is literally insisting that we must smash victims of drug addiction in order to demonstrate the harms of drug use. It just tells you everything you need to know about the drug war and the people who carry it out on a daily basis.

In the war on drugs, one can be diagnosed with the disease of drug addiction merely by being found in possession of drugs. At that point, one is then broken down and stripped of their family and property. They are removed from their job and their home, banished into a dark brutal hole amongst violent thugs and sociopaths, and once every last thing they have has been taken away, they are asked to start acting normal.

It's really a perfect mess as far as public policies go, which is why it's so damned hard to find a defender of the drug war who isn't paid to participate in it.

The Prison Art Gallery invites you to a reception and screening of "Hard Road Home," a new documentary about the Exodus Transitional Community prisoner reentry program. Our own music ambassador Dennis Sobin will be performing classical and jazz guitar.

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), a one-time drug warrior, made brief remarks on the floor of the US House of Representatives relating to criminal justice, including his support for the Second Chance Act (measures to help people coming out of prison to reenter society successfully) and for restoring the vote to people with past felony convictions, and his sponsorship of H.R. 460 to eliminate the harsher treatment that people convicted for crack cocaine offenses currently receive under the law relative to other cocaine offenses (along with other remarks that don't directly relate to drug policy). (Click here to write your US Representative in support of H.R. 460.) Nothing too huge here, but of interest, and good to see that the chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee is focused on things like this.