Two
Million
Prisoner
Mark
Sparks
Discussion
in
Nation's
Most
Incarcerated
State,
as
DOJ
Condemns
Juvenile
Prison
Conditions
2/25/00
A recent report by the Justice Policy Institute, revealing that the nation's incarcerated population passed the two million mark on or around Feb. 15, has sparked a discussion in the nation's most incarcerated state, Louisiana. Though the nationwide per capita incarceration rate is 483 inmates per 100,000 residents -- the highest in the world, save Russia -- Louisiana's incarceration rate is 736, a full 50 percent higher, according to the San Jose Mercury News (2/16). John Hainkel, president of the Louisiana state Senate, told the Mercury, "There are some who think we ought to keep everybody in jail and throw away the key -- I know, because I was one of them." But after four years chairing the Senate Finance Committee, says Hainkel, he has concluded that prison spending is diverting funds from the state's already under-funded public schools. "It's no great mystery," Hainkel continued. "The state of Minnesota has the highest rate of college graduates and the lowest rate of individuals in prison." Meanwhile, a report by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) accused guards at a privately run juvenile prison in Jena, Louisiana of habitually using excessive force and allowing brutal fights over items such as food, clothing and shoes, according to the Associated Press yesterday (2/24). The prison, which has been owned and operated by Wackenhut Corrections Corporation since opening in Dec. 1998, is one of two privately run juvenile prisons in the state. The other one, in Tallulah, was taken over by the state last year after a DOJ report made similar findings. One of the experts who investigated conditions at Jena, Dr. Nancy Ray, found there were prisoners who had no clean clothing and were "huddled under a sheet or blanket," and described a shoe shortage at the prison as "pervasive." Ray blamed the problems at least in part on "the reluctance of Wackenhut Corrections Corporation to spend adequate funds for the care of the youth." The report also found that some inmates repeatedly mutilated themselves in order to be transferred to the medical unit and avoid being pressured for food or sex by other prisoners, and that some telephones for reporting abuse by guards or inmates to a hotline were either broken or had the wrong phone number listed. Wackenhut issued a statement disagreeing with the report's findings. The Week Online spoke with Bill Rittenberg and Gary Wainwright, civil rights and defense attorneys in New Orleans. Rittenberg observed, "The imprisonment rate in America is increasing, and the crime rate is going down. You know why those statistics are both correct? I've yet to read this in the newspaper. The crime rate does not include drugs. Think about the last time you read about the crime rate. They talk about violent crimes, they talk about property crimes, they talk about murder, rape, theft, robbery. They don't talk about selling or possessing drugs. We're increasing the number of people in jail for drugs, while the crime rate is going down, and we're increasing our prison population by putting people in jail -- not only these so called victimless criminals who aren't criminals -- but they're not even counted as part of the crime rate. Isn't that worth reporting?" Rittenberg noted that the majority of Louisianans in prison are from New Orleans, and that the New Orleans DA, Harry Connick, Sr. (father of musician Harry Connick, Jr.), "prosecutes every drug crime he can. As a matter of fact, if you're caught with a pipe with resin in it, he charges you with possession of a drug and paraphernalia." To reduce the state's swelling correctional budget, Rittenberg suggested, "First of all, we don't need to arrest people for marijuana at all, but if you were going to arrest, if you were even going to have it as a crime, you could summon them to court and not put them in jail. People say no one goes to jail for possessing marijuana. Well, everybody that gets caught with marijuana goes to jail. They may get out in a day on bond, but it's very expensive to bring them to jail and book them." Wainwright recommended that "all persons prosecuted for crimes involving less than $100 of any drug should presumptively not be incarcerated, and I mean possession and/or sales. For instance, in our state, the mandatory minimum penalty for a first offender for sale of any amount of cocaine is five years, with a requirement of spending at least 85 percent of that time incarcerated." "The other thing I would recommend is the elimination of drug offenses from our multiple offender statute. In Louisiana, we have some insane sentencing ranges that were enacted when judges actually did sentencing, and they overlaid a vicious, retroactively applicable three-strikes law, on top of these incredible sentencing ranges. So for instance, for distribution of cocaine in any amount, the penalty is 5 to 30 years, and for a second offense, the mandatory minimum sentence is 15 years, which must be served day for day. So a person who was convicted of the crime of simple possession of cocaine, who then sold $20 worth of cocaine, presumptively would receive a 15 year sentence, of which they would do the full 15 years. It's a pretty expensive way to pick up $40 worth of coke." Wainwright also recommended applying such changes retroactively, saying "If they would just do the two things I have suggested, it would reduce the number of persons in custody in our state immediately by approximately 40 percent. The Department of Corrections' own figures say that 40 percent of all inmates are in for drug offenses, up from 8 percent in 1982." Commenting on the larger drug policy issue, Wainwright said, "Drug prohibition is an abject failure, and it's breaking our country. It's destroying our capacity to educate our children. It's racist, and it's classist." Rittenberg commented, "I think the war on drugs has done an incredible amount of damage in corrupting our society and building jails rather than schools. Ultimately, I think drug abuse should be discouraged as a medical problem, but not as a criminal problem. The two classes of people that would hate to see drugs legalized: law enforcement and drug dealers. Drug dealers would be the big losers if drugs were not a crime."
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