Incarceration

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The War on Drugs Is Reducing Marriage Rates

New research published in The Review of Economics and Statistics shows that growing incarceration has contributed to declining marriage rates. In fact, the paper finds that about 13% of the decline in marriage since 1990 can be explained by male incarceration. About 18% percent of the decline in marriage rates among black women can be explained by incarceration. Hispanic women are also relatively disadvantaged, with about 10% of the reduction in marriage rates in that group explained by incarceration.
Publication/Source: 
Big Think (NY)
URL: 
http://bigthink.com/ideas/25300

You Did It (Action Alert)

We Are the Drug Policy Alliance.

Senate leadership is sitting on a bill that would pave the way for criminal justice and drug policy reforms. Urge your Senators to support this bill!

Take Action!

Email Your Senators

Dear friends,

Thanks so much for your emails and phone calls to the U.S. Senate! We're very close to creating an independent commission to urge Congress and President Obama to reduce incarceration and improve public safety. This commission is a great opportunity to put the failed war on drugs on trial. I'm optimistic we can finally make this happen, but we need your help again.

Please contact your Senators today before Congress adjourns for the year. Tell them to pressure Senate leadership to pass the National Criminal Justice Commission Act.

If we can get this commission established, we hope to force Congress and the President to consider important ideas like making marijuana legal, treating drug use as a health issue instead of a criminal justice issue, and eliminating failed drug war programs that waste taxpayer money.

Senator Jim Webb (D-Va) and others have a plan to pass the bill, but in order for the plan to work we need to show enormous support. The best thing you can do is email your Senators. And then forward this email to friends and family.Please contact your Senators now and help pass this critical legislation. Together we can march this bill over the finish line. We're very close.

Sincerely,

Bill Piper
Director, Office of National Affairs
Drug Policy Alliance

Barriers to Ex-Offender Employment Could Cost the Nation at Least $57 Billion

According to a study from the Center for Economic and Policy Research's senior economist John Schmitt, ex-offenders' barriers to employment lowers the nation's employment on average by 1.5 million to 1.7 million workers. Multiply that number by the average output that these workers would be putting into the economy, if they were employed, and the loss totals at least $57 billion, he said. This figure is growing as more of the hundreds of thousands of people put into jail during the prohibitionist war on drugs in the 1980s and 1990s are released.
Publication/Source: 
Los Angeles Times (CA)
URL: 
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2010/11/ex-offender-and-employment.html

US Supreme Court Hears California Prison Crowding Case, Advocates Urge California to Focus on Resolving Crisis, Including Ending Prison as Response to Drug Use (Press Release)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 30, 2010
CONTACT: Margaret Dooley-Sammuli at 213-291-4190 or Tommy McDonald 510-229-5215

US Supreme Court Hears California Prison Crowding Case

Advocates Urge California to Focus on Resolving Crisis, Including Ending Prison as Response to Drug Use

10,000 in Prison for Drug Possession at Cost of $500 Million a Year

WASHINGTON - November 30 - The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in Schwarzenegger v. Plata, a landmark prison rights case in which a federal court found the unconstitutional conditions of California's prisons were caused primarily by overcrowding and ordered California to reduce prison overcrowding from over 200% of design capacity down (by about 40,000 people) to 137.5% of capacity within two years. California has conceded that the state's prison conditions are unconstitutional but has nonetheless asked the Supreme Court to put the states' right to administer its prisons before the constitutional rights of individuals who are wards of the state.

"One of the primary reasons that the state's prisons are dangerously overcrowded is that California continues to lock up thousands of people each year for low-level drug possession. There is no basis in evidence or principle to expose people to this dangerous environment simply for the possession of a small amount of illicit substances," says Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, deputy state director for the Drug Policy Alliance in Southern California. "California must follow the lead of other states like Texas and New York and stop sending people to state prison for drug possession, which can be handled as a health issue safely, effectively and affordably in the community."

"The state currently spends $500 million a year to incarcerate 10,000 people for nothing more than personal drug possession," Dooley-Sammuli continued. "That does not include the unknown number of parolees who have been returned to prison for a few months based on the results of a drug test. This is a terrible waste of scarce resources. Treatment in the community is effective and affordable. Unfortunately, California this year eliminated funding for community-based treatment for drug possession arrestees."

"People who use drugs do not belong in the state's cruel and costly prisons simply for that personal use. We urge California to take the logical step of ending incarceration as a response to drug possession, while expanding opportunities for drug treatment in the community," continued Dooley-Sammuli.

Location: 
CA
United States

Indonesian Police Say Jail Cells No Help in Drug War

Location: 
Indonesia
The Jakarta Police are considering handing drug traffickers hefty fines rather than locking them up, arguing that imprisonment did not appear to be an effective deterrent and was getting too costly for the state. According to Jakarta Police Chief Inspector General Sutarman, it would be much wiser if drug users were not put in jail but in a rehabilitation center, which is currently not an option. "If jails are already full and people who violate the law are also set to become a burden for the state, why don’t we change this? I think we need a strategic decision, to be taken by the government and the legislature," he said.
Publication/Source: 
Jakarta Globe (Indonesia)
URL: 
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/indonesian-police-say-jail-cells-no-help-in-drug-war/405000

House Passes National Criminal Justice Commission Act

The US House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill, HR 5143, Monday night that would create a national commission to study the US criminal justice system and make recommendations for reform. Bulging prison populations, draconian drug war policies, and racial disparities in the criminal justice system will all be on the table for the commission.

http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/files/william_delahunt.jpg
Bill Delahunt, championed the Webb bill in the House of Representatives
The bill was sponsored by Rep. William Delahunt (D-MA) and passed under an expedited process that assumes unanimity if no members object. None did.

The bill is a companion bill to one sponsored by Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA), who in his first term in the Senate has convened a series of forums on the state of the criminal justice system. The Webb bill has passed the Senate Judiciary Committee and is likely to see a Senate floor vote this fall.

"It is a sign of how quickly the tide has turned against punitive criminal justice policies that this bill passed without opposition," said Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance. "Prisons are overflowing at great taxpayer expense, in large part because of the failed war on drugs, and members of Congress are finally saying enough is enough, we need ideas for reform."

"Today's vote shows Congress is aware that our nation's criminal justice system is in need of major repair," said Julie Stewart, director of Families Against Mandatory Minimums. "With 2.3 million people in its jails and prisons, the United States has the highest incarceration in the world. One of out of 31 Americans is under some sort of correctional supervision -- jail or prison, parole or probation. Brave though we may be, we are no longer the land of the free," continued Stewart.

"The House has spoken decisively. Now it is time for Senators to act," Piper said. "Sen. Webb's and Rep. Delahunt's bipartisan commission legislation needs to be passed quickly before the war on drugs and punitive criminal justice system bankrupt our country and destroy more lives."

"We know too much about crime and rehabilitation, and about what works and what doesn't work with regard to recidivism, to continue to mindlessly sentence minor offenders to long prison sentences and inflexible mandatory minimum penalties," said Stewart. "The moral bankruptcy of such policies is now being compounded by the fiscal bankruptcy it is visiting upon the state and federal governments. We applaud the House for taking this enormous step, and we look forward to seeing this bill through until it reaches the president's desk before the 111th Congress adjourns," Stewart concluded.

If passed by the Senate and approved by the president, the legislation will create a bipartisan, blue-ribbon commission to conduct a top-to-bottom review of the entire criminal justice system and offer concrete recommendations for reform within 18 months. Like its House counterpart, the Webb bill has strong bipartisan support. Among its 37 cosponsors are Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs Chairman Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA), ranking minority member Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), and Judiciary Committee member Sen. Orrin Hatch (D-UT).

Washington, DC
United States

New Compendium of Recidivism Studies Unveiled

Special Message

June 28, 2010

 

Dear Friends,

The Sentencing Project is pleased to announce the publication of a first-of-its-kind comprehensive database, "State Recidivism Studies." The database provides references for 99 recidivism studies conducted between 1995-2009 in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

These studies have been produced by a variety of agencies, including departments of corrections, sentencing commissions, statistical analysis centers, and universities. The studies address issues including juvenile/adult status, race, gender, offense type, program intervention, and many others, and thus offer insights into the variety of factors that affect recidivism outcomes.

Because of the diversity among the studies in methodology and definitions of recidivism, the measurements of recidivism rates are not necessarily comparable across jurisdictions. Overall, though, the studies provide insight into the factors that affect program success for people sentenced to incarceration or community supervision.

We hope you find this database useful in your work, and please keep us posted regarding new research in this area.






Marc Mauer
Executive Director

 

Send an email to The Sentencing Project. » CONTACT

The Sentencing Project
1705 DeSales Street, NW, 8th Floor, Washington, DC 20036, 202.628.0871

 

 

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The Sentencing Project is a national organization working for a fair and effective criminal justice system by promoting reforms in sentencing law and practice, and alternatives to incarceration.

The Rape of Justice!

The rape of justice, the guardian of liberty is an assault on the American dream! Big government or the establishment ideology of unethical capitalism and welfare-warfare statism is an assault on the American dream. Morally bankrupt profiteers are well on their way to killing the American dream of self government free of big government tyranny and oppression! Let ethics and the free market rule!

DISCLOSE Act proponents want to reduce political expression by groups that represent anti-Statist, pro self-government ideals and kill our ability to fire and replace incumbents. Please, oppose this bill!

"The House Judiciary held a ultra sober two hour hearing on the problem of rape kits not being opened across the USA. The Members made nice speeches about the problem but no action is expected. Recall NPR had an excellent report 18 months ago about the 400,000 unopened kits. And the lawmakers have snoozed.

All witnesses agreed that the number of kits untested in unknown. Kits are left at hospitals (never picked up), evidence rooms and labs. Police departments are reluctant to find out how many they have, due to adverse publicity. Detroit PD has about 15,000 untested. Los Angeles has about 12,000. New York City recently worked off a 17,000 kit backlog…the only bright spot in testimony.

It costs about $900 to 1000 to process a kit. At 50% of police depts, forensic DNA evidence is NOT a priority.

Mariska Hargitay, the star actress from the TV show Law & Order – SUV was especially effective in pointing out how society places so little value on women. The victims (thousands of whom have written her) interpret not testing, as a sign that the police and society do not care about rape. IMHO the victims are correct." Detective/Officer Howard Wooldridge (retired) Drug Policy Specialist at COP, CitizensOpposingProhibition, blogged recently. "NOTE: while testifying, she cracked emotionally for about 10 seconds….very moving."

Sexual predator treatment squeezes state budgets as do rape kit testing.

Now is the time for American lovers to unite and insist American warriors get their adrenaline rush catching murderers and other violent predators. Regulation, science based education and treating abuse as a medical problem is a better drug policy that increases public safety and harm reduction plus frees up billions in wasted funds to use incarcerating the violent and sexual predators.

The only real wealth is well being and happiness. We, the nonviolent members of the pro-better-world society, far out number the violent evil doers. Get tough on violent crime! Take away violent offenders' and sexual predators' ability to reproduce. Aggressive behavior can be bred out of us as it has been done in dogs. We shall overcome the violent and inherit the earth.

Drug treatment is at least five times less costly than prison. Arresting nonviolent people for making a safer health choice, Cannabis, compared to other medicinal/social drugs is scandalous reefer madness. The people believe in self-government and self-medication. Jury nullification is a Constitutional power tool we the people pack.

Cannabis oil is that cure all some of our ancestors used! Thank God, they did not let us all be brain washed into forgetfulness about the wonder of it! Oooops they spilled the beans, in spite of the oppression promoted by medical profiteers.

Prohibition has become a war on parental authority, local government decision making and free speech. Current policies destroy families and official lawlessness rules. Alcohol makes domestic violence 8 xs more likely, cannabis does not. Taking children out of homes of nonviolent cannabis users and placing them in homes in which alcohol is the drug of choice is discrimination and a policy bordering on insanity! Meanwhile, damage from fetal alcohol syndrome fills our prisons with folks who can not comprehend the consequences for their actions..

Taking property from people who have made a safer health choice is legalized discrimination and extortion! States seized $1.52 billion in 2007 End asset forfeiture! We owe reparations to people for all this tyranny.

"I believe the most important facet of American life is our freedom. Life in America should be free from discrimination for every social class, religion, and race. The police in America are charged with the protection of our citizens, not discrimination. Our courts protect our citizens, not encourage their oppression. It is the responsibility of the Federal Government to protect the citizens from these harms and we, the people, have the requirement of holding them accountable.

It is my hope that as my home state of Texas is thrust into the legalization debate that our legislators take into consideration the need to reduce the harm associated with discrimination against its citizens. We need to reduce the harm with sending trained law enforcement after nonviolent offenders. We need to reduce the harm by reducing the number of nonviolent offenders we send to prison. But most importantly, we need to reduce the harms associated with youthful indiscretions and protect our children." - a retired member of our Armed Forces, Larry Talley.

Americans deserve policies that build family bonds instead of destroying them. Our children deserve an education free of lies, half truths, innuendoes and any similar government propaganda.

"Freedom to make bad decisions is inherent in the freedom to make good ones. If we are only free to make good decisions, we are not really free." US Congressman Ron Paul notes. Take action now, join the Campaign For Liberty!

We just have to love our kids, teach them that their body is the temple for their soul and hope they make the right choices. You can't live their lives for them; they will not allow it. Independent individuals will eventually throw off the bonds of tyrannical parents and big government tyranny and oppression

Across America paramilitary drug raids trigger violence rather than lessen the risk. It is called, "Overkill" to use such force on a nonviolent health issue. This unconscionable bloodshed is on the hands of leadership as much as those who pulled the trigger or did the actual butchering and torturing. It is a policy created problem.

Michael Phelps has won 14 career Olympic gold medals, the most by any Olympian. Last I checked, Phelps has broken thirty-seven world records in swimming. Neither the USA Swim team nor Kellogg's cereal and munchie company had a problem with him despite an alcohol-related arrest in 2004. Michael has nothing to apologize for but Kellogg's and the Swim Team should reconsider their decision to punish him for making a safer social and health choice to simply celebrate with friends.

The horrors of meth are triggered by our insane policy. Since the 1930s methamphetamine has been safely manufactured as a legal drug. Today it is routinely prescribed for children with ADHD. Only when its manufacture is forced underground does it become dangerous. Just as legal distilleries make whiskey safely now, yet during the Noble Experiment from which we learned nothing, small illegal stills poisoned users or exploded and burned, causing major public safety problems. Moonshine stills burned down forests and polluted rivers during our first failed prohibition.

Dallas is one of six main sites for a nationwide electronic town meeting entitled “America Speaks: Our Budget, Our Economy” on Saturday, June 26, 2010 from 10:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. at the Dallas Convention Center. (Lunch and childcare will be provided.) Thousands of Americans across the country linked by satellite and webcast will participate in an unprecedented national discussion to help find solutions to our budget deficit and the national debt. Find common ground on some of the tough choices our country needs to make about spending, taxes and the role of government.

Please support the 84 congressional candidates from every political party who have signed a statement against war spending The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost Americans over $1 trillion in direct costs, and over $3 trillion altogether.

Stall war funding for economic relief! At a time when our national debt exceeds $13 trillion, we can no longer afford these wars. It's time for Congress to reject any funding except to bring all our troops safely home.

Ron Kovic presented Tom Cruise with his Bronze Star medal on the final day of filming Born on the Fourth of July for his "courageous portrayal of the true horrors of war." Time Magazine reported that Oliver Stone said, "He gave it to Tom for bravery, for having gone through this experience in hell as much as any person can without actually having been there."

Kovic wrote his autobiography in less than two months. "I wrote all night long, seven days a week, single space, no paragraphs, front and back of the pages, pounding the keys so hard the tips of my fingers would hurt. I couldn't stop writing, and I remember feeling more alive than I had ever felt. Convinced that I was destined to die young, I struggled to leave something of meaning behind, to rise above the darkness and despair. I wanted people to understand. I wanted to share with them as nakedly and openly and intimately as possible what I had gone through, what I had endured. I wanted them to know what it really meant to be in a war — to be shot and wounded, to be fighting for my life on the intensive care ward — not the myth we had grown up believing. I wanted people to know about the hospitals and the enema room, about why I had become opposed to the war, why I had grown more and more committed to peace and nonviolence."

Ron's story was also the inspiration for the novel and movie, Coming Home.

"The scar will always be there, a living reminder of that war, but it has also become something beautiful now, something of faith and hope and love. I have been given the opportunity to move through that dark night of the soul to a new shore, to gain an understanding, a knowledge, and entirely different vision. I now believe I have suffered for a reason and in many ways I have found that reason in my commitment to peace and nonviolence. My life has been a blessing in disguise, even with the pain and great difficulty that my physical disability continues to bring. It is a blessing to speak on behalf of peace, to be able to reach such a great number of people." Ron Kovic, born July 4, 1946.

As we celebrate Independence Day, please consider those heroes, who have given their limbs and lives for this country, sacrificed and died for freedom, for making this world a better place, will have died in vain; if the American dream of self-government free of tyranny and big government oppression dies.

No fear! Be brave, end the terror by changing our intrusive, big-bully policies, both foreign and domestic. The monetary and environmental costs are staggering and the human suffering unconscionable.

True patriots, lovers of liberty, insist morally bankrupt US warriors are held responsible for torture and wars abandoning our ideal of nonintervention. The world knows they violated international law. They are traitors to the republic for which we stand. We will be derelict in our duties to maintain an in fact, free republic if we don't insist on it.

Our founders knew big government would always mean a gang of evil doers, often hiding tyranny under the guise of good intentions. Sometimes a great notion comes along that can save a great nation!

The American dream is, "for the power of love to overcome the love of power." We will overcome! Founded in self-government or the freedom philosophy, both economic and personal, we will overcome!

Track your Senators' and Representative's votes by e-mail

Changing who's in charge will not affect much. The real cause of this huge quagmire of failed policy is the beast, big government, that money hungry beast, Uncle Sam! Ma Freedom tells it like it is! The beauty of it is when we focus on down-sizing our government we regain our roots of self-government and secure the blessings of liberty for future generations and ourselves.

Compiled and written by Colleen McCool

Prohibition: Drug War is a Failure, Associated Press Reports

In a major, broad-ranging report released Thursday, the Associated Press declared that "After 40 Years, $1 Trillion, US War on Drugs Has Failed to Meet Any of Its Goals." The report notes that after four decades of prohibitionist drug enforcement, "Drug use is rampant and violence is even more brutal and widespread."

http://stopthedrugwar.com/files/apstory.jpg
The AP even got drug czar Gil Kerlikowske to agree. "In the grand scheme, it has not been successful," Kerlikowske said. "Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified."

The AP pointedly notes that despite official acknowledgments that the policy has been a flop, the Obama administration's federal drug budget continues to increase spending on law enforcement and interdiction and that the budget's broad contours are essentially identical to those of the Bush administration.

Here, according to the AP, is where some of that trillion dollars worth of policy disaster went:

  • $20 billion to fight the drug gangs in their home countries. In Colombia, for example, the United States spent more than $6 billion, while coca cultivation increased and trafficking moved to Mexico -- and the violence along with it.
  • $33 billion in marketing "Just Say No"-style messages to America's youth and other prevention programs. High school students report the same rates of illegal drug use as they did in 1970, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drug overdoses have "risen steadily" since the early 1970s to more than 20,000 last year.
  • $49 billion for law enforcement along America's borders to cut off the flow of illegal drugs. This year, 25 million Americans will snort, swallow, inject and smoke illicit drugs, about 10 million more than in 1970, with the bulk of those drugs imported from Mexico.
  • $121 billion to arrest more than 37 million nonviolent drug offenders, about 10 million of them for possession of marijuana. Studies show that jail time tends to increase drug abuse.
  • $450 billion to lock those people up in federal prisons alone. Last year, half of all federal prisoners in the US were serving sentences for drug offenses. [Editor's Note: This $450 billion dollar figure for federal drug war prisoners appears erroneous on the high side. According to Department of Justice budget figures, funding for the Bureau of Prisons, as well as courthouse security programs, was set at $9 billion for the coming fiscal year.]

The AP notes that, even adjusted for inflation, the federal drug war budget is 31 times what Richard Nixon asked for in his first federal drug budget.

Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron told the AP that spending money for more police and soldiers only leads to more homicides. "Current policy is not having an effect of reducing drug use," Miron said, "but it's costing the public a fortune."

"President Obama's newly released drug war budget is essentially the same as Bush's, with roughly twice as much money going to the criminal justice system as to treatment and prevention," said Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the nonprofit Drug Policy Alliance. "This despite Obama's statements on the campaign trail that drug use should be treated as a health issue, not a criminal justice issue."

"For the first time ever, the nation has before it an administration that views the drug issue first and foremost through the lens of the public health mandate," said economist and drug policy expert John Carnevale, who served three administrations and four drug czars. "Yet... it appears that this historic policy stride has some problems with its supporting budget."

Of the record $15.5 billion Obama is requesting for the drug war for 2011, about two thirds of it is destined for law enforcement, eradication, and interdiction. About one-third will go for prevention and treatment.

The AP did manage to find one person to stick up for the drug war: former Bush administration drug czar John Walters, who insisted society would be worse if today if not for the drug war. "To say that all the things that have been done in the war on drugs haven't made any difference is ridiculous," Walters said. "It destroys everything we've done. It's saying all the people involved in law enforcement, treatment and prevention have been wasting their time. It's saying all these people's work is misguided."

Uh, yeah, John, that's what it's saying.

The Safe Streets Arts Foundation: Volunteer Opportunity for Book Cover Designer

 

Dye painting 

 We are about to publish another book under our Foundation House Publishing imprint. We seek a volunteer book cover designer to create the cover for it using selected images of art made by imprisoned artists. All text and image files will be sent to you as email attachments.

 

The 250-page book is entitled "Art on the Inside: Understanding and Helping Imprisoned Artists." The table of contents reads as follow:

1. Creating Art in Prison

2. Men and Women Who Make Art in Prison

3. How Prisons Operate

4. Role of the Arts in Prisons

5. Helping Artists in Prisons

6. Getting Started as a Mentor to Artists in Prison

7. Duties of a Mentor to Artists in Prison

8. Dangers to Avoid When Mentoring to Artists in Prison

9. Mentoring Over the Long Haul

10. Marketing Art Made in Prison

11. Helping Artists After Their Release From Prison

12. Career Opportunities for Mentors

 

If you have the time and interest to help us design the cover for this exciting new book, please email staff@prisonsfoundation.org   Thank you.

 

  All art on this page created by imprisoned artists and available  at our Prison Art Gallery or online at http://prisonsfoundation.org/art.html

 

"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."

Gallery logo 

  

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