Injustice for Sex Offenders

 Advocacy
Jul 302013
 

There is one class of offender that is often considered worse than all the others combined, although that is rarely the case.  Because of that, they have been targeted with legislation that has become progressively more draconian over time.

SexOffendersRegistry…Every year, on their birthdays, registrants are required to go to the police department and re-register. They must update their picture and residential information that will appear on the website and address any other concerns. Throughout the year, Emily keeps a folder documenting all the places she goes and the permission she obtained to go there: to her weekly Bible study group; parent-teacher meetings and so on. When she makes her birthday trip to the police department, she must take this folder with her.

Eugene Porter, a therapist who has worked with convicted sex offenders and male child victims of sexual abuse since 1984, describes this annual ritual as a “powerful shaming structure.” 

And what about the shamers? Criminologist and professor Chrysanthi Leon remarked that the public spectacle of these hyper-restrictive laws is a “crucial way of signaling that we’re doing something about sexual violence, when in reality we’re doing very little.” 

Tom Tobin, a psychologist by training and currently serving as the vice-chair of the California Sex Offender Management Board, carefully acknowledges the unique trauma experienced by a victim of a sexual crime, but questions whether concern for this lasting emotional damage is what fuels our current handling of such crimes. 

“I think there’s something more primitive," he says. "There’s something about human sexuality that engages some part of everyone so that if we can identify this group who can be the ‘bad ones’ around human sexuality, or the exercise of it, than maybe it lets the rest of us off the hook. We can be sexist, anti-woman; we can make our own behaviors acceptable because it’s the sex offenders who are violating peoples’ rights. I think there’s something deeper and more profound going on that makes it difficult for people to respond in a thoughtful way.” 

When Eugene Porter reflects on the experiences he has witnessed and treated over the course of his three-decade career, he conveys an authority over and insight into a subject of which he nevertheless insists we must “acknowledge the level of our own ignorance.” 

“Being a sex offender is the worst stigma—maybe after 9/11, being a terrorist is as bad,” Porter asserts.

It is not uncommon to hear people who work in this field employ the metaphor of terrorist to describe how the criminal justice system has come to treat and portray sex offenders. Both specters have been ascribed a set of behaviors and placed on a continuum of threat to a vulnerable society. Wherever one falls on that continuum, there is an assumption that forward progression on it is inevitable.

With the logic of a continuum, on which offenders are interminably placed, a justification emerges for a permanent registry that treats all offenders of crimes involving sexual arousal or genitalia as essentially the same. Our attachment to a powerful system that confines and separates thousands of individuals, making pariahs of them all , reveals for whom these shaming rituals and spectacles provide a soothing salve: it’s for those of us not on the list.

Charlotte Silver is an independent journalist currently based in San Francisco. She writes for Al Jazeera English, Inter Press Service, Truthout, The Electronic Intifada and other publications. Follow her on Twitter @CharESilver… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Alternet>

This is just the last section of an extensive article that covers the subject in depth. I urge you to click through to

I became aware of this article through a newsletter from CURE National:

CURE is one of the very few organizations out there who will advocate for those most marginalized by society.  The topic of sex offenders is treated by many as the third rail of politics.  As a result, we have watched as those who are convicted of even the most inoffensive or understandable legal transgressions – often while they were still in their teenage years or as even quite young  juveniles – are made to suffer the most draconian sentences.  In some cases, young people whose only offense was with another consenting adolescent while they were still minors themselves can be locked away indefinitely in psychiatric facilities under prison-like conditions merely because the state argues they might commit a future sexual crime if they are released.  Kansas University Law School professor Corey Yung wrote in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology comparing civil commitment to Guantanamo Bay, and arguing that in many ways the civil commitment prisoners are worse off…

They deserve thanks for their willingness to oppose the trend.

The Caging of America

 Advocacy
Jan 302012
 

In October of 1990, I heard a prison cell door clang shut behind me for the first time.  Reality struck.  Time stopped.  It was easier for me than for many, because I served only nine years.  Ever since I have searched for ways to convey the experience to others, who have not been there themselves.  I never could do so to my complete satisfaction, but in a recent article, Adam Gopnik has.  Here is a very small part of it:

man_behind_barsA prison is a trap for catching time. Good reporting appears often about the inner life of the American prison, but the catch is that American prison life is mostly undramatic—the reported stories fail to grab us, because, for the most part, nothing happens. One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich is all you need to know about Ivan Denisovich, because the idea that anyone could live for a minute in such circumstances seems impossible; one day in the life of an American prison means much less, because the force of it is that one day typically stretches out for decades. It isn’t the horror of the time at hand but the unimaginable sameness of the time ahead that makes prisons unendurable for their inmates. The inmates on death row in Texas are called men in “timeless time,” because they alone aren’t serving time: they aren’t waiting out five years or a decade or a lifetime. The basic reality of American prisons is not that of the lock and key but that of the lock and clock.

That’s why no one who has been inside a prison, if only for a day, can ever forget the feeling. Time stops. A note of attenuated panic, of watchful paranoia—anxiety and boredom and fear mixed into a kind of enveloping fog, covering the guards as much as the guarded. “Sometimes I think this whole world is one big prison yard, / Some of us are prisoners, some of us are guards,” Dylan sings, and while it isn’t strictly true—just ask the prisoners—it contains a truth: the guards are doing time, too. As a smart man once wrote after being locked up, the thing about jail is that there are bars on the windows and they won’t let you out. This simple truth governs all the others. What prisoners try to convey to the free is how the presence of time as something being done to you, instead of something you do things with, alters the mind at every moment. For American prisoners, huge numbers of whom are serving sentences much longer than those given for similar crimes anywhere else in the civilized world—Texas alone has sentenced more than four hundred teen-agers to life imprisonment—time becomes in every sense this thing you serve…

Inserted from <The New Yorker>

I urge you to click the link and read the entire article, especially if you think that prison is somehow like a country club.  You may think that prisoners deserve abuse, or that it just does not matter to you, but it does.  Almost every person locked behind bars will be released.  They will walk your streets.  They will live in your neighborhoods.  The quality of care and opportunities for prisoners to rebuild themselves, as productive citizens, who obey the law, has a direct effect on your safety and that of your family.  If you can’t support making prisons places to restore people, because it’s the right thing to do. do it because it’s the selfish thing to do.

Why an Ex-Con Can Be a Great Hire

 Advocacy
Nov 292011
 

One of the most important steps in making our communities safer is to give people who return from prison a vested interest in their community.  Nothing does that better then a job, so hiring an ex-con makes your community a safer place to live.  More often than not, they are excellent employees.

29ex-con-job-interviewA few years ago, Dunkin’ Donuts manager Luke Halloran had some tough jobs to fill at a store he ran in one of Chicago’s sketchiest areas. It had been robbed several times, a body had been found in a nearby trash container, and employees hired locally enjoyed giving away the store’s products to their friends.

Halloran had an idea: He would hire an ex-con from a local halfway house — someone with the street smarts to feel comfortable working in a dangerous neighborhood. It worked so well, he hired more when he opened up a store of his own. Now a third of his employees are past and present guests of the state — and Halloran says the former convicts are among his best employees. "They never miss a day, get drug tested and will work any shift," he says.

Hiring ex-felons is an experiment that hundreds of business owners have tried — and one that state and federal governments have supported with tax breaks. Uncle Sam offers businesses a credit of up to 40 percent of income taxes on the first $6,000 of wages paid to each former inmate they hire, a deal similar to those offered for hiring from other targeted categories, like welfare recipients and the disabled. "I give them the second chance they wouldn’t get," says Halloran, who has worked in the Dunkin’ Donuts system since 1975.

For the most part, the ex-cons are humbled by circumstances and grateful for any job they can get. "’Oh, thank you for giving me this job!’ isn’t something you hear from the general population," says Karim Khowaja, who operates 16 Dunkin’ Donuts in downtown Chicago and has hired at least six ex-cons in the past 18 months. "They are very humble." Apparently, working a coffee counter, sweeping floors or doing anything useful is better than being restricted to a half-way house — a step up from prison, but not a leap. What’s more, keeping a steady job is generally the only way an inmate can leave transitional housing and earn, say, a weekend pass to visit family. Intrigued, we went to Chicago to meet Halloran’s crew and check in with other area business owners who have taken similar steps…

Inserted from <Smart Money>  Hat Tip <Sponsors, Inc.>

I strongly recommend clicking through to the source to read the rest of this excellent article.

Input Needed on EEOC Draft

 Advocacy
Nov 252011
 

Dear Friends, on July 26, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission held a hearing on removing arbitrary bars to hiring people with arrest and conviction records. After the hearing, International CURE and 325 other organizations and coalitions filed comments.

After reading most of them, International CURE drafted the following acronym CERTIFY as a procedure for employers when they interview potential employees.

1) Conditional Employment this certify procedure begins only where there is mad an offer of employment. 2) Request of a criminal conviction record is made by the employer to a third party agency or is completed by the employer. 3) Time in that only the last five years of the conviction record (excluded are arrests without convictions) 4) Informed by the employer to the potential employee in writing of either the entire record or those convictions that are of concern 5) Fight in that potential employees have an opportunity to point out any inaccuracies in the record and also explain how they have rehabilitated themselves in regard to these convictions. 6) Yes (or No) decision to hire is made by the employer.

Please email me your reaction to this CERTIFY draft. Does being certified work for you or your loved ones and friends who may have convictions? Charlie

To send a message to CURE please click here.

A Country of Inmates

 Advocacy
Nov 232011
 

One area where the United States indisputably leads the world is incarceration.

The United States has 2.3 million people behind bars, almost one in every 100 Americans. The U.S. prison population has more than doubled over the past 15 years, and one in nine black children has a parent in jail.

Proportionally, the United States has four times as many prisoners as Israel, six times as many as Canada or China, eight times as many as Germany and 13 times as many as Japan.

With just a little more than 4 percent of the world’s population, the United States accounts for a quarter of the planet’s prisoners and has more inmates than the leading 35 European countries combined. Almost all the other nations with high per capita prison rates are in the developing world.

There’s also a national election in the United States soon. This issue isn’t on the agenda. It’s almost never come up with Republican presidential candidates; one of the few exceptions was at a debate in September when the audience cheered the notion of executions in Texas.

Barack Obama, the first black president, rarely mentions this question or how it disproportionately affects minorities. More than 60 percent of the United States’ prisoners are black or Hispanic, though these groups comprise less than 30 percent of the population.

“We’ve had a race to incarcerate that has been driven by politics, racially coded, get-tough appeals,” said Michelle Alexander, a law professor at Ohio State University who wrote “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.”

The escalating cost of the criminal-justice system is an important factor in the fiscal challenges around the United States. Nowhere is that more evident than in California, which is struggling to obey a court order requiring it to reduce its overcrowded prisons by 40,000 inmates.

Today, there are 140,000 convicts in California’s state prisons, who cost about $50,000 each per year. The state pays more on prisons than it does on higher education.

Yet the prisons are so crowded — as many as 54 inmates have to share one toilet — that Conrad Murray, the doctor convicted in the death of the pop star Michael Jackson, may be able to avoid most prison time.

California isn’t unique. In Raleigh County, West Virginia, the county commission has worried that the cost of housing inmates at its Southern Regional Jail may imperil basic services, including education. That problem is exacerbated as the state keeps more prisoners longer at such regional facilities to alleviate its overcrowding problems.

The prison explosion hasn’t been driven by an increase in crime. In fact, the crime rate, notably for violent offenses, is dropping across the United States, a phenomenon that began about 20 years ago.

The latest F.B.I. figures show that murder, rape and robberies have fallen to an almost half-century low; to be sure, they remain higher than in other major industrialized countries.

There are many theories for this decline. The most accepted is that community police work in major metropolitan areas has improved markedly, focusing on potential high-crime areas. There are countless other hypotheses, even ranging to controversial claims that more accessible abortion has reduced a number of unwanted children who were more likely to have committed crimes.

However, one other likely explanation is that more than a few would-be criminals are locked up. Scholars like James Q. Wilson have noted that the longer prison terms that are being handed down may matter more than the conviction rates.

This comes at a clear cost. For those who do ultimately get out, being an ex-con means about a 40 percent decrease in annual earnings.

Moreover, research suggests that children from homes where a father is in jail do considerably less well in life and are more prone to becoming criminals themselves.

“People ask why so many black kids are growing up without fathers,” said Ms. Alexander. “A big part of the answer is mass incarceration.”

It seems clear that the U.S. penal system discriminates against minorities. Some of this is socioeconomic, as poorer people, disproportionately blacks and Hispanics, may commit more crimes.

Much of the inmate explosion and racial disparities, however, grow out of the way the United States treats illegal drugs. It began several decades ago with harsher penalties for crimes involving crack cocaine, which was more widely used by blacks, than powder cocaine, which was more likely to involve whites. A larger issue is how the U.S. criminal justice system differentiates in its treatment of drug sellers — who get the book thrown at them — versus drug users, who, at most, get a slap on the wrist.

A hypothetical example: A black kid is arrested for selling cocaine to the members of a fraternity at an elite university. The seller gets sent away for 25 years. The fraternity is put on probation for a semester by the university and nothing else.

In all likelihood, the convicted seller is quickly replaced, and few of the fraternity kids change their drug-use habits. The lesson: neither the supply nor the demand has changed, and the prison population grows.

Given their budgetary difficulties, about half the states are actually reducing their prison populations. Smart selective policies are cost-effective. Many criminologists and sociologists say the proclivity to commit crimes diminishes with age; the recidivism rate for convicts over 30 is relatively low, and most every analysis suggests that parole and probation are far less expensive for taxpayers than incarceration.

Nevertheless, the politics of the crime issue cuts against any rational approach. Even if recidivism rates are low, it’s the failures that attract attention. In 1988, the Democratic presidential nominee, Michael S. Dukakis, was savaged when it was revealed that one convict, Willie Horton, who was furloughed on his watch as governor of Massachusetts committed a rape while at large. Four years ago, the former governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, a Republican, was hurt in his bid for his party’s nomination by reports of crimes committed by felons who were paroled during his time in office.

“One case where a parolee does something very wrong is sensationalized,” Ms. Alexander said, “and many, many others are kept behind bars for a long time.”

Paul Solomon

Executive Director

Sponsors, Inc.

338 Highway 99 North

Eugene, OR 97402

Main Office: 541.485.8341

( Direct: 541.505.5652)

( Fax: 541.683.6196 )

 

www.sponsorsinc.org

Kitzhaber Says No to Death

 Advocacy
Nov 232011
 

I will not be going to do volunteer work in the prison this month.  Not only am I not well enough yet, but also, our meeting was cancelled so that staff could practice for an execution scheduled early next month.  I had planned, and partially written an article for that occasion, stating that was one of the few times I was not proud to be an Oregonian.  Thanks to John Kitzhaber, Oregon’s Democratic Governor, that article will not see the light of day.

23KitzGov. John Kitzhaber announced today that he is halting the scheduled Dec. 6 execution of Gary Haugen and won’t allow any executions to occur while he is governor.

Kitzhaber’s bombshell came the day after the Oregon Supreme Court said that it would allow the lethal injection execution of the twice-convicted murderer to go forward.

In slamming the brakes on Oregon’s first execution in 14 years, the Democrat governor said the state’s death penalty system is “broken” and he vowed to push for reforms in the 2013 legislative session.

“It is time for this state to consider a different approach,” Kitzhaber said. “I refuse to be a part of a compromised and inequitable system any longer; and I will not allow further executions to take place while I am governor.”

Under Oregon’s constitution, governors have sweeping power to grant reprieves, commutations and pardons for those convicted of crimes.

Kitzhaber said he was exercising his authority to issue a temporary reprieve for Haugen, lasting “for the duration of my term in office.”… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <The Statesman Journal>

Here’s the video of Kitz’s statement.

Thank you Governor.  I remain proud to be an Oregonian.  It’s time for the US to join the civilized nations of the world by outlawing capital punishment once and for all.

New State Commission on Public Safety

 Advocacy
Oct 042011
 

The cost of building, maintaining and staffing prisons has grown exponentially over the years, so much so that Oregon has launched a new Commission on Public Safety to examine the costs and benefits of current practices and recommend improvements.

4prison costThe district attorneys of Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties recently dropped by to complain that we’ve been awfully critical of public-safety policies that have, after all, seen crime plunge to the lowest level in 40 years.

Well, yes. But the DAs missed the point of our frustration, which is that Oregon has become a state that is more than willing to cut a child’s school year, but can’t possibly reduce a man’s prison sentence. Public safety — especially prisons and the sentencing policies that drive their costs — have been shielded from the cuts, the scrutiny and the reforms that have hit every other significant public service in Oregon.

That’s why we were so supportive of a new high-profile state commission on public safety in an editorial that prompted local DAs Mike Schrunk, John Foote and Bob Herman to come by for a friendly visit. It’s also why that it’s fine by us that the commission, which holds its first meeting today, doesn’t include DAs or anyone else whose first reflex is to defend the status quo. The commission will be led by Chief Justice Paul De Muniz of the Oregon Supreme Court and former Gov. Ted Kulongoski.

For 20 years prosecutors and victims’ rights group have taken the initiative on criminal sentencing. They’ve gotten what they wanted, including mandatory sentencing for major crimes against people and recently enhanced sentences for some property crimes. And yes, all this has helped reduce crime. Measure 11 has worked as advertised.

But it’s time to face the costs. Oregon’s prison system has grown into a $1.6 billion enterprise with 4,500 employees and 14,000 inmates. Oregon already spends nearly a dime of every general fund dollar on prisons…

Inserted from <The Oregonian>

Remember that the vast majority of people sentenced to prison terms will be released and return to live in our communities.  When that time comes, however long their sentences, the only thing that matters is whether or not they are still a threat to our communities.

Mandatory sentencing mitigates against reform.  As a prisoner, I took the first step toward habilitation by joining a program, only because I hoped doing do would get me released sooner.  To my great surprise, that program inspired me to rebuild myself into the person I wanted to become.  Eleven years of living as a productive citizen, since my release, demonstrates my success.  However, had I had a mandatory sentence, I might never have taken that first step and returned to my community, just as messed up as I was when I entered prison, but more bitter.

Spending money on helping prisoners and other offenders reform is a far better investment that longer incarceration.  It enhances public safety, and because it costs so much less, it leaves Oregon more to spend on education and community services that improve our quality of life.

A 21st Century Lynching

 Advocacy
Sep 202011
 

From CURE National:

Dear Fellow Abolitionists,

Just a few minutes ago, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles issued its denial of clemency for Troy Davis. As disappointing as this is, the famous Joe Hill quote from before he was executed comes to mind: "Don’t waste any time in mourning. Organize…!" NCADP’s statement is here and below.

But first, Troy Davis is not dead yet!

Right now, please immediately act and urge the parole board to reconsider their decision. Please politely e-mail the board members at or fax their office at (404) 651-8502.

Then, click here to join us in calling on the Board to reconsider its decision, and on the Chatham County (Savannah) District Attorney Larry Chisolm to do the right thing. They have until the final moments before Troy’s scheduled execution to put the brakes on this runaway justice system.

Then, join a local demonstration, or initiate one yourself. Today is a Day of Protest to express our outrage at the recent decision to deny Troy Davis clemency. And on Wednesday (Sept. 21), we’re calling for a Day of Vigil on Troy’s impending execution date.

If you are able to organize locally for either of these events, please click to tell our partners at Amnesty International USA about your plans.

If you can’t make it to a local demonstration, please help NCADP continue this important work to end the death penalty once and for all.

Everyone is encouraged to wear a black armband, with "not in my name!" written on it.

In Atlanta, there will be a protest rally at the state capitol tonight at 7pm EDT (Washington Street side).

In Washington, DC, we’ll be back at Tivoli Square (Columbia Heights Metro stop) tonight at 6pm EDT.

Everywhere else: protests are encouraged. Check with your state coalition to see what plans they have.

Tomorrow (Wednesday 9/21) will be a "Day of Vigil." Wear your black armband, with "not in my name!" written on it. We’ll post further info later tonight or in the morning. For now we know that there will be a vigil in Jackson across from the prison at Towaliga County Line Baptist Church and a vigil in Atlanta on the capitol steps. Everywhere else: vigils are encouraged. Check with your state coalition to see what plans they have.

Again , while we are focused today on saving the life of a man accused of murder where there remains so much doubt about his guilt, we remember Officer Mark MacPhail and urge you to keep his family and the families of all victims in your thoughts and prayers. We know this must be very difficult for them….

Also , for those of us with children, talking about this situation becomes more difficult. NCADP’s Michael Stone blogged about doing so and shares a recent article, here.

Please know that NCADP is invested in this case because its the right thing to do, and also because so many of the aspects of this case speak to the same issues that are present in so many other cases which are not nearly as high-profile. Troy Davis is already a household name, and because our our collective action, over the next few days, many more people will learn of the systemic failures of the death penalty, and join our movement.

There is so much to do, and we want to do more. Thank you for ta king action , and if you are able, please also take a moment to support NCADP so that we can continue this important work, now, and in the future. Please remember that through the end of September, all new donors to NCADP will have their tax-deductible contribution doubled by a special matching grant from Atlantic Philanthropies. Click here to donate today. Thank you.

Finally, it must be said that Troy Davis is not the only person scheduled to be executed in the coming weeks and months. Of particular note is tonight’s execution in Texas of Cleve Foster. NCADP lists every upcoming execution on the top right side of its web page, and you can click on each name to learn more and take action via our State Affiliate where the execution is scheduled.

Thank you.

Official NCADP Statement on the denial of clemency for Troy Davis

"The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty is stunned and disappointed.

"There can be no clearer indication than the Board of Pardons and Paroles decision today, that the system is profoundly and unalterably broken.

"Each institution in Georgia that was charged with the responsibility of doing justice in this case has failed.

"And now the Board of Pardons and Parole has failed miserably even though they had every opportunity to do their job properly.

"It is now clearer than ever — that the only way to prevent an innocent man from being executed in Georgia is to end the death penalty in that state once and for all.

"We pledge to work with our sisters and brothers in Georgia who have worked tirelessly to prevent the travesty of justice in the Troy Davis case and to retire the peculiar institution known as capital punishment, brick by brick."

Contact us at Abe@ncadp.org. Please join NCADP on Facebook or LinkedIn, follow us on Twitter, read more on our website, blog, or at the Huffington Post, and contribute online.

I have called.  I hope you will.

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