PRISON MINISTRY NETWORK NEWS is a service of the Prison Ministry Task Force of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. Val Hymes is the coordinator of the Task Force and editor of Prison Ministry Network News.

VAL HYMES is a “retired” journalist who covered local, state and national government, law enforcement, the courts and politics for 35 years. She continues to advocate for criminal justice reform in Maryland and in Washington, working with secular and religious organizations to make reentry back to families and to the community a real possibility. For news, follow http://prisminnet.org For resources and information, www.prisonministry.ang-md.org For Camp Amazing Grace for children of the incarcerated, www.prisonministry.ang-md.org/camp. Contact: valhymes@aol.com.

THE TASK FORCE WEB SITE contains more information and features about prison ministry, including an extensive list of local and national programs and resources in prison ministry, reentry, criminal justice reform, death penalty reform and victims/families.

See also news about Camp Amazing Grace for children of the incarcerated and about a new network for camp volunteers on the Episcopal Church Jubilee page.

You are invited to submit comments and information for inclusion on either site to valhymes@aol.com.

 

Congress Begins Fight for Restoring
Ex-Offenders' Voting Rights

Justice advocates, unhappy that an estimated 5.3 million Americans cannot vote or participate fully in civic life because of a criminal conviction, are pressing for Congressional action to establish a federal standard restoring voting rights in federal elections. Sen Russell Feingold  and Rep. John Conyers introduced the Democracy Restoration Act as S.1516 and H.R. 3335.

The provisions of the Democracy Restoration Act would:
• Restore voting rights in federal elections to nearly 4 million Americans who have been released from prison and are living in the community.
• Ensure that probationers never lose their right to vote in federal elections.
• Notify people about their right to vote in federal elections when they are leaving prison, sentenced to probation, or convicted of a misdemeanor.

Passage of the Democracy Restoration Act would:
• Create a uniform standard across the country in federal elections.
• Strengthen our democracy by creating a broader and more just base of voter participation.
• Aid law enforcement by encouraging participation in civic life, assisting reintegration, and rebuilding ties to the community.
• Facilitate election administration by streamlining registration issues and eliminating the opportunity for erroneous purges of eligible voters.
• Eliminate the confusion about who is eligible to vote.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU's School of Law, 35 states continue to disenfranchise people after release from prison. http://tinyurl.com/lxb73b

Virginia Ex-Offenders May Vote Next Year

Virginia 's governor has urged all ex-offenders who served time for nonviolent crimes to ask for a return of their voting rights. The Sentencing Project reports that Gov. Tim Kaine said in a broadcast interview with WSLS 10 he cannot by law restore voting rights across the board; it must be done one by one by name. He maintained that he has restored the rights of all nonviolent ex-offenders who applied and that those convicted for a violent felony require an investigation.

Here's a link to the story by the Sentencing Project: http://tinyurl.com/y8rhfge

It should be noted that Robert McDonnell, who will take office as governor in January, has a voting record in the state legislature far to the right of many of Gov. Kaine's political views, so the future of the program may be in question.

 

Innocent Man Executed – The Fallout

News reports that Texas executed an innocent man in 2004 have led to bipartisan discussions and support for forensic reform--scientific standards nationally. The New Yorker magazine ran an extensive, detailed story about the father who was put to death for setting a fire that killed his three children. It turns out he was convicted on faulty evidence, according to arson experts and the story, ”Trial by Fire” by David Grann. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann

But the former prosecuto,r who is now a judge, still believes Cameron Todd Willingham was guilty. He told a Nightline interviewer "without question" the scientific evidence was not valid, but went on to claim that Willingham was “likely a devil worshipper and was therefore guilty.”

Gov. Rick Perry recently fired the head (and two members) of a special commission he had appointed to investigate the case two days before a report by a fire expert was due to be delivered. The Innocence Project called it a Nixon-like “Saturday Night Massacre.”

Justice Scalia: “not a single case…the innocent’s name would be shouted from the rooftops.”  NCADP Campaign: The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty quotes Supreme Court justice Antonin Scully when he wrote in 2006 that “there has not been ‘a single case - not one - in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred in recent years, we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent's name would be shouted from the rooftops.’”

The NCADP calls on everyone to get out the word that the state of Texas has executed an innocent man. Suggestions and references to a report about Willingham and three other innocent men are found here: http://www.ncadp.org/index.cfm?content=96

To find state NCADP affiliates:www.ncadp.org/affiliateDirectory.cfm

Science-Based Federal Forensic Standards Supported

A Senate Judiciary Committee hearing showed that bipartisan support exists for science-based federal forensic standards. Senators also focused on the recommendation of the National Academy of Sciences to establish an independent, science-based entity to oversee forensic science research and standards.

Chairman PatrickLeahy noted that one in five labs do not meet accreditation standards set by the National Academy of Crime Lab Directors. "We cannot allow these nationwide deficiencies in forensic sciences to continue." http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112681135

Feds Require Inmates Who Plead Guilty to Waive DNA Tests

The Washington Post reports that the attorney general has ordered a review of the Bush administration policy that was apparently initiated to get around The Innocence Protection Act of 2004 allowing federal inmates to seek post conviction DNA tests to prove their innocence.

"The waivers are filed only in guilty pleas and bar defendants from ever requesting DNA testing, even if new evidence emerges," Jerry Marcon wrote in an Oct. 11 story. http://tinyurl.com/yg6gs7e

 

DNA Test Exonerates 241st After 23 Years; Episcopal Church Urges Inmate Testing

The Innocence Project has announced the exoneration of another innocent man – held for 23 years in Texas for a rape he did not commit. DNA tests proved Ernest Sonniers’ innocence and identified the two men who committed the 1986 rapes. He was released Aug. 7.

In June, the Supreme Court said prisoners do not have a constitutional right to DNA testing. “ The decision was based in large part,” said a Washington Post editorial, “on the assertion that federal judicial intervention was unnecessary because the great majority of state legislatures already had passed laws to give prisoners adequate access to the revolutionary technology.”

While 47 states allow some statutory access to DNA testing, the laws are limited and sketchy and motions for testing are often denied, even where the inmate offers to pay for it and the test could confirm guilt or innocence.

At this writing, 241 wrongly incarcerated individuals have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 16 who were on death row. In almost 40 percent of the cases, the real perpetrator has been identified by DNA.

In July, the Prison Ministry Task Force of the Diocese of Maryland drafted a resolution for introduction at the Episcopal Church's General Convention that urges the church and all Episcopalians to “call on their legislators and members of Congress to ensure that all those accused and convicted have broad access to DNA testing, not only to exonerate those who are innocent but also to identify the true perpetrators of crimes they have been accused or convicted of.” It was sponsored by three bishops and was enacted.

Passage of the resolution means the church’s government relations office in Washington can go to work lobbying for appropriate legislation before congress. Sen. Patrick Leahy, Senate Judiciary Committee chair, is author of the Innocence Protection Act that is part of the Justice For All Act of 2004, which is up for reauthorization. It provides grants to the states that protect crime scene evidence and make DNA testing available to prisoners. The IPA would save innocent men and women from execution by making available to those on death row adequate counsel and DNA testing.

Senator Leahy’s comment about the Supreme Court ruling: This decision only creates new procedural roadblocks and unnecessary hurdles to getting at the truth in this and many other cases.  As Justice Stevens wrote in dissent, ''The DNA test [the defendant] seeks is a simple one, its cost modest, and its results uniquely precise . . . . Yet [the state] refuses to allow [the defendant] to test the evidence at his own expense and to thereby ascertain the truth once and for all.'  To overcome this result, I will continue to work to make modern DNA testing available whenever possible to strengthen our criminal justice system."     

The Innocence Project is building a petition to call for an independent federal agency to oversee forensic science following a recommendation by the National Academy of Science that Congress create a National Institute of Forensic Science. A bill is expected in September or October.

The Justice System Is Sending
Entire Communities Back to Prison

But States Seek Ways to Reverse Revolving Door

(See entire program and transcript at http://tinyurl.com/q5yhor)

The criminal justice system is sending whole communities back to prison and jail, says Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly’s  May 22 feature broadcast over the PBS network.  And how some states are taking new approaches to reverse the revolving doors by rewarding with tax dollars parole and probation departments that reduce the prison population. 

Correspondent Phil Jones visited Brownsville in Brooklyn, N.Y., where community activists, including the Justice Mapping Center, are pushing for new approaches.

 ERIC CADORA (Director, Justice Mapping Center): The current overuse and overdependence on criminal justice is a complete failure. It’s having no impact on these issues of public safety and crime. That’s not to say there isn’t a need for a level of criminal justice. But this radical overuse is not accomplishing those goals. Cadora said he found about 150 blocks in New York City where the authorities were spending more than a million dollars a year just to send people back and forth from prisons upstate to the neighborhood than back to prison again.  

GREG JACKSON (Community Activist): Incarceration is not just the individual going to jail, but it’s the whole family going to jail, for Brownsville. Everybody’s suffering from it.  There are no reentry programs to help them get jobs or kick drug habits or find housing -- especially when felons are not allowed to live in public housing.

Mr. CADORA: Let us take the investments that had been built up over the years from criminal justice, redirect them to investments in civil institutions in those neighborhoods — better schools, better health care, better mental health support, and so on. In many of the states where the Justice Reinvestment initiative has taken root, prison populations are either dropping or the trend line in growth has been radically reduced, and that’s from Connecticut to Kansas — liberal to conservative. In Kansas, when they found that 60-65 percent were being sent back to prison because of a parole or [probation revocation, the legislature turned it around.

JONES: That was the case in Kansas, so legislators passed a new law — a new direction —committing taxpayer dollars to cities and communities that change parole and probation regulations that'll reduce the prison population by 20 percent.

Mr. CALDORA: That’s kind of what the reinvestment project is about. It’s about saying, “Look, if you can reduce it, we’ll give you the money to keep reducing it.”

New Policy In Maryland for Parole, Probation Violators

 Frank Dunbaugh, director of the, Maryland Justice Policy Institute, has been saying that for years. And he repeated it to the Maryland Secretary of Public Safety and Correctional Services Gary D. Maynard, at a meeting several early this spring. Maynard's reply was that he is putting into place a new policy. When ex-offenders violate parole or probation, they will be turned over to the Department of Parole and Probation for discipline and not sent back to the prison facilities.
 

Sen. Webb Calls America’s Criminal
Justice System a 'National Disgrace’

Bill Calls for Commission to ‘Reshape’ System

Sen. James Webb (Democrat of Virginia) has introduced the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009 to “bring together the best minds in America to confer, report, and make concrete recommendations about how we can reform the process.”

He said, “ America's criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace. Its irregularities and inequities cut against the notion that we are a society founded on fundamental fairness. Our failure to address this problem has caused the nation's prisons to burst their seams with massive overcrowding, even as our neighborhoods have become more dangerous. We are wasting billions of dollars and diminishing millions of lives.

”We need to fix the system. Doing so will require a major nationwide recalculation of who goes to prison and for how long and of how we address the long-term consequences of incarceration.

“The National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009 will create a blue-ribbon commission to look at every aspect of our criminal justice system with an eye toward reshaping the process from top to bottom. I believe that it is time to bring together the best minds in America to confer, report, and make concrete recommendations about how we can reform the process.

“Why We Urgently Need this Legislation:

-- With 5% of the world's population, our country now houses 25% of the world's reported prisoners.

-- Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1200% since 1980.

-- Four times as many mentally ill people are in prisons than in mental health hospitals.

-- Approximately 1 million gang members reside in the U.S., many of them foreign-based; and Mexican cartels operate in 230+ communities across the country.

-- Post-incarceration re-entry programs are haphazard and often nonexistent, undermining public safety and making it extremely difficult for ex-offenders to become full, contributing members of society.

Fact Sheet -- http://webb.senate.gov/email/incardocs/FactSheeti.pdf

"WHAT'S WRONG WITH OUR PRISONS?" asks Senator Webb on the front cover of Parade Magazine March 29. The issue is worth tracking down at your library because he dominates the issue with the subject of the lead article, "Why We Must Fix Our Prisons." 

www.parade.com/news/2009/03/why-we-must-fix-our-prisons.htm
l

Maryland Episcopal Bishop Eugene T. Sutton (second from left) joins religious leaders of all denominations and Gov. Martin O'Malley (second from right) and Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown (right) in a march on the State House to support a bill banning the state's death penalty. The repeal failed but severe restrictions were placed on cases involving capital punishment.

Religious Community Leads Fight
To Repeal the Death Penalty

Churches Use High Tech to Reach State Legislators

By Val Hymes

The Episcopal Church is not only taking to the streets to fight for an end to the death penalty; it is now fighting smarter.

Legislation in at least 11 states calls for a repeal of the death penalty and two others want a moratorium with a study, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Bills are moving forward in New Mexico, Kansas, Colorado, Montana and Nebraska. Bills also have been introduced in New Hampshire, Washington, Connecticut, Illinois and New Hampshire. Maryland’s bill was amended to restrict the use of the death penalty.

Alaska, on the other hand, has a bill in to reinstate the death penalty and Georgia is trying to broaden its reach. A bill passed by the Virginia Assembly specifying additional offenses as eligible for the death penalty was recently vetoed by Gov. Timothy Kaine.

In Maryland, Bishop Eugene T. Sutton marched with other religious leaders and the governor through the streets of Annapolis to the State Capitol to call on the legislature to repeal the law. The Senate, however, scratched the repeal and called for more proof of guilt for death sentences. The bishop said that will not stifle his opposition.

“I vow to continue the struggle to end the death penalty without restrictions,” he said. “If the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s has taught us anything, it is that nonviolence is still the most powerful weapon that we have to deter the evil of violence and murder…more powerful than the electric chair, more effective than a lethal injection. State-sponsored killing is not going to end the cycle of violence that we all decry.”

At the same time, Episcopalians were urged to contact their legislators and they are doing it across the nation.

“The religious community across the board has taken up the mantle on this issue,” said Diann Rust-Tierney, executive director of the National Coalition to End the Death Penalty (NCADP). “They are stepping up their moral leadership, encouraging their parishioners to put their faith in action.”

It is made easy for them to contact their legislators and governors by going to the Web site of a local affiliate. In Maryland, it’s Citizens Against State Executions (CASE) and clicking on “Take Action.” In New Mexico, it’s the New Mexico Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty (NMCADP); in Colorado, Coloradans Against the Death Penalty (CADP). NACDP has affiliates in every state and works closely with them when legislation is pending.

This new bolder activism was reflected in a 2007 “Clergy Voices” survey of mainline Protestant clergy by Public Religion Research released March 6. It found that 81 percent of the Episcopal clergy surveyed supported an end to capital punishment, compared with 66 percent overall. The national church has formally opposed the death penalty for the last fifty years.

The Roman Catholic Church, said Rust-Tierney, has responded with the Catholic Mobilizing Network to End the Death Penalty. “We are using technology to make it easier” for people to speak to their lawmakers and governors.

Maryland ’s bill is “a significant step,” she said. “Narrowing the death penalty is a recognition that we need to change, that it doesn’t work. It is a serious indictment of the death penalty.”

As it moved – no longer a repeal -- to the Maryland House of Delegates, Bishop Sutton’s words echoed outside the State House, “I implore all of our legislators, follow your conscience.”

+++

Val Hymes is coordinator of the Prison Ministry Task Force, Diocese of Maryland. To locate state affiliates: www.NCADP.org

Clergy Fights Death Penalty
With Internet and the Pen

The church waded into the death penalty issue with op-ed pieces in The Washington Post by the Bishop of Maryland, Eugene Taylor Sutton, and the Bishop of Washington, John Bryson Chane: “A Moral Test for Maryland Legislators”, and in the Baltimore Sun by the Suffragan Bishop of Maryland, John R. Rabb, and the Bishop of Easton, James “Bud” Shand.: “Execution Isn't Path to a Peaceful Society.” www.ang-md.org

An interfaith group of clergy – Roman Catholic, Protestant, Muslim and Jewish -- also spoke out at a a news conference Jan. 14 and signed a letter to the governor and General Assembly urging the end of the death penalty, saying, “Common to all of us are the sanctity of life and forgiveness.”
http://tinyurl.com/cwxxgw

There were 37 executions in the nation last year. New Jersey repealed the death penalty late in 2007. Death penalty repeal efforts were narrowly defeated in Montana, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico last year. Those states are trying again this year..
http://tinyurl.com/cxrj4c

Live from Death Row

150 Hear Troy Davis on Georgia’s Death Row –
Three Times Readied to Die

Mike Stark of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) writes:

Last night, over 150 people turned-out at American University (AU) to hear a live phone conversation with Georgia death row prisoner, Troy Davis. The event, a stop of the "Live from Death Row" national tour organized by the Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP),  was locally sponsored by AU's Justice Not Jails and Black Student Alliance.  It also featured in-person appearances by Troy Davis' sister Martina Corriea and former death row prisoner and Black Panther Lawrence Hayes (who later told his own story of wrongful incarceration on New York’s death row).

The audience was visibly moved as Troy described his ongoing struggle for justice and the daily horrors of living in death row.  "When Troy told his story, I felt I was back there with him," Lawrence said.

As audience members handed around a model Troy had created of his tiny cell on death row, he described how he refused to abandon hope even during his darkest hours as he endured the macabre rituals and humiliations as he was prepared for execution on three separate occasions. 

He described undergoing dehumanizing medical exams and the sick-routine of having to submit details for his own funeral.  Troy described how he could see the death chamber from his holding cell and during his 'final' visits with family and friends, both he and Martina recalled how correctional staff wept along with the Davis family as they gave were their final goodbyes.

But far from having been beaten down by these inhuman experiences, Troy’s dignified and optimistic voice was an inspiration to everyone in the room.  He was generous in his thanks to all his supporters and reminded the audience that the struggle against the death penalty went beyond the details of his own case….

"The answer [to crime] is not killing," Lawrence instructed the audience, "You need to start with human beings.  When people are taken care of, the rest will take care of itself." http://nodeathpenalty.org/content/index.php


The Numbers Climb;
The Problems Grow

5.1 million on parole or probation

By end of 2006, one in every 31 adults: 7.2 million were in the adult correctional population;.. At the end of 2007, 5.1 million adults were out on parole or probation. Now, at the end of 2008, how many will go back inside? RTwo-thirds arfe expected to be rearrested within three years, and they will be responsibler for 10 million new crimes by 2013. In 2009, 700,000 will be released and 3.5 million will return to their communities over the next five years . http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pandp.htm

WASHINGTON - The U.S. adult correctional population -- incarcerated or in the community -- reached 7.2 million men and women, an increase of 159,500 during the year(2006), the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today in a new report. About 3.2 percent of the U.S. adult population, or 1 in every 31 adults, was in the nation's prisons or jails or on probation or parole at the end of 2006.

The number of men and women who were being supervised on probation or parole in the United States at year-end 2006 reached 5 million for the first time, an increase of 87,852 (or 1.8 percent) during the year.  A separate study found that on December 31, 2006, there were 1,570,861 inmates under state and federal jurisdiction, an increase of 42,932 (or 2.8 percent) in 2006.

During 2006 the number of inmates under state jurisdiction rose by 37,504 (2.8 percent). The number of prisoners under federal jurisdiction rose by 5,428 (2.9 percent).

In 2006 the number of prisoners in the 10 states with the largest prison populations increased by 3.2 percent, which was more than three times the average annual growth rate (0.9 percent) in these states from 2000 through 2005. These states accounted for 65 percent of the overall increase in the U.S. prison population during 2006. The federal system remained the largest prison system with 193,046 inmates under its jurisdiction. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/press/p06ppus06pr.htm

Federal Prisons Offer
Inmates E-mail Access

From CURE National:

By the spring of 2011, all 114 U.S. prisons are expected to have e-mail available for inmates.

The program, started several years ago, has reduced the amount of old-fashioned paper mail that can sometimes hide drugs and other
contraband. Just as important, officials say, e-mail helps prisoners connect regularly with their families and build skills they can use when they return to the community.

The system inmates use isn't like programs used in most offices and homes. Inmates aren't given Internet access, and all messages are sent in plain text, with no attachments allowed. Potential contacts get an e-mail saying a federal prisoner wants to add them to their contact list and must click a link to receive e-mail, similar to accepting a collect
call from a lockup.

Once approved, prisoners can only send messages to those contacts - they can't just type in any address and hit send. And contacts can change their mind at any time and take their name off the prisoner's list.

Scott Middlebrooks, the warden at Coleman federal prison northwest of Orlando, said his inmates sent more than 3,200 messages and received some 2,800 a day last month through the system, which is called TRULINCS
and run by Iowa-based Advanced Technologies Group Inc.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons says the system pays for itself with some of the proceeds from prison commissaries. Inmates also pay 5 cents per minute while composing or reading e-mails.

Security, of course, is a concern. That's why the messages can be screened for keywords that suggest an inmate may be involved in a crime, or read by a corrections officer, just like paper letters. That can create some lag time between when messages are sent and received.

Without analyzing the program specifically, it would be impossible to tell whether inmates could abuse their e-mail privileges, said Bruce
Schneier of the security firm BT Counterpane. Coded messages could be sent over e-mail, but that could happen just as easily over the phone, he said.

The e-mails don't replace phone calls, but those are limited to five hours a month. And Torres still sends letters, some sprayed with perfume.

By JESSICA GRESKO

 

Edited by Val Hymes
Updated 12/10/09

'Financial Expediency, Not Justice'
States Move to Ban
Mandatory Minimums

Legislators in Rhode Island this fall Outlawed mandatory minimum sentences. Two other states, Massachusetts and Ohio considering sentencing reforms, according to the Washington Post.

Numbers released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics show that states are sending fewer people to prison in order to lessen the high cost of their corrections departments.. They are also reevaluating sentencing, parole and drug policies. The irony of these changes was caught by the head of a victims’ organization when he noted that they are economic and not justice reasons.

The good news is that the incarceration rate for African-Americans has dropped, but not far enough. "... The scale of racial disparity in imprisonment still dramatic," said Marc Mauer, The Sentencing Project's executive director.
http://tinyurl.com/yhsf4zf


 New Bill Introduced
to Cut Corrections Costs

New bipartisan legislation was introduced in Congress Nov. 17 that is designed to cut corrections costs and increase public safety. It's called the Criminal Justice Reinvestment Act of 2009.

It would authorize the Attorney General to make grants to state and local governments and tribes to help them analyze criminal justice trends, develop options to reduce expenses and increase efficiency to make communities safer, to put into place better policies and programs, and measuring the impact of these changes.

In 1988 state spending on corrections was $12 billion. The cost had increased to more than $50 billion by 2008, yet most inmates released from state prisons were back inside within three years.

The Council of State Governments Justice Center worked in several states with policymakers on these ideas and saw hundreds of millions of dollars saved in corrections spending. The bills, S. 2772 and HR. 4080 grew out of programs tried in 11 states.

After clicking on the following link, select "Nov. 17 -- Justice Reinvestment Bill."
http://tinyurl.com/yed4f9a


Prison Ministry Wins
3 Justice Resolutions
At General Convention

The Episcopal Church holds a General Conventions every three years. Actions approved by the convention or the executive council means the church’s government relations office in Washington can go to work lobbying for appropriate legislation before Congress. A successful resolution in 2006 calling on Episcopalians to actively support reentry legislation helped lead to the passage and signing of the Second Chance Act in 2008.

Despite the huge workload of about 400 resolutions facing them at the July 2009 Convention, the bishops and deputies of the Diocese of Maryland won the successful passage of three resolutions proposed by the Prison Ministry Task Force.

  • B021 urges Episcopalians to press their legislators and members of Congress to ensure that prisoners have “broad access” to DNA testing. It was sponsored by Bishop John L. Rabb, Bishop John B. Chane of Washington and Bishop James J. “Bud” Shand of the Diocese of Easton. Passage permits the church’s Government Relations Office to lobby for appropriate legislation like the reauthorization of the 2004 Justice for All Act providing grants to states for DNA testing programs.
  • C075 includes $75,000 in the budget for the creation and support of more summer camps like Camp Amazing Grace for children of the incarcerated. It was sponsored by the diocese, having been approved at the May Diocesan Convention. [However, the Budget Committee later failed to fund it. " Efforts will be made to ask the Executive Council to restore it if the economy improves.]
  • D095 calls for a Prison Ministry Sunday in all dioceses and congregations, but was amended to ask that they “focus on ways to minister to God’s children behind bars, those returning to the community, and their families and victims.” The title, however, remains “Prison Ministry Sunday.” --- Val Hymes

States, Cities Tell Hill
What They Will Do
With Second Chance $$$

 As the full court press for funds for the Second Chance Act came to a head, the chief sponsor, Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-IL), sponsored a special symposium April 1 to highlight what states and cities want to do with reentry funds if they are approved.

The Second Chance State and Local Reentry Initiative Symposium on Capitol Hill focused on half a dozen state and city corrections officials and eight bipartisan congressional supporters. They planned to spell out what they believe those programs in the new reentry law can do to make corrections more efficient and less costly and neighborhoods safer if the money can be found.

Attendees were also to hear from Gary Dennis, the Justice Department point man in the Bureau of Justice Assistance about fund solicitation requirements and deadlines.

The Second Chance Act, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and was signed into law in April 2008, authorizes $165 million for programs that will improve coordination of reentry services and policies at the state and local levels. While advocates are pressing for full funding, President Obama included $75 million in his budget for SCA.

It all came about because governors and state officials had discovered that corrections were costing them more than colleges and something had to be done to build more prisons or to find a way to stop the revolving door of recidivism. See what NPR says: http://tinyurl.com/crc4ng

Officials taking part in the symposium were: Jerry Madden, Texas State Representative Deanne Benos, Illinois Assistant Director of Corrections, Secretary Rick Raemisch, Wisconsin Department of Correction Commissioner Martin F. Horn, New York City Department of Correction Bonnie Cosgrove, Maryland Public Safety & Correctional Services Dennis Schrantz and Michigan Deputy Director, Planning & Community Development.

The new law includes a $55 million program for Adult and Juvenile Offender State and Local Reentry Demonstration Projects, which improve coordination of reentry initiatives and implement evidence-based practices.

The Second Chance Act also authorizes a $15 million program for Mentoring Grants to Nonprofit Organizations, which provide mentoring and other transitional services to adult and juvenile offenders reentering the community.

State and local governments and nonprofit organizations around the country are eager to launch innovative reentry programs, and families and communities are desperate to access the services the Second Chance Act will provide.

Why Was the Second Chance Act So Important?
Read about it here

Urban League Asks Obama
To Address Black Issues

Six Times More Likely to Go to Jail

By JESSE WASHINGTON – March 24. NEW YORK (AP) — President Barack Obama should specifically address disparities in black unemployment, foreclosures, education and health care, the National Urban League says in its annual "State of Black America" report.

Despite the progress represented by the election of the first black president, blacks are twice as likely to be unemployed, three times as likely to live in poverty and more than six times as likely to be incarcerated, says the report, which was being released Wednesday. Read the full story at http://tinyurl.com/czufd9

Shocking New Numbers
On Rise in Prison Costs

1 in 100 Adults Now in Prison
2.3 million behind bars in 2008, most of any nation. – Baltimore Sun

New High in U. S. Prison Numbers
Growth attributed to more stringent sentencing laws -- Washington Post.

All over the country, the report of the Pew Center on the States made the lead story. Talk about “shock and awe.” The 50 states alone spent more than $49 billion on corrections. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending.

The study, done by a recognized organization, notes that the costs of corrections is now $11 billion more than it was 20 years ago, and that fact is making the states consider reentry programs despite the fear of looking “soft on crime.”

Republican support of the Second Chance Act is a sign that this message of cost is a strong one. Read more: http://tinyurl.com/b2wehg

The Barriers Outside

 A US News and World Report story by Alex Kingsbury makes it clear that the biggest challenge is the willing coordination of federal, state and community services for those getting out.

There are also “Invisible Punishments – the Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment” as spelled out by co-editor Marc Mauer of The Sentencing Project in his book. The magazine notes:

Some states, including New York, have laws restricting employers from considering of criminal records in hiring, but many others do not. Ex-cons are further handicapped because employers can now easily gain access to criminal offender databases when they are performing background checks. The Army, for example, found that more than 8,000 of its new recruits last year had criminal histories. It granted them waivers, but other professions are off limits to ex-cons—teaching and child-care work, of course, but also embalming, limousine driving, firefighting, and haircutting.

Senator Leahy of Vermont, chief sponsor of the Second Chance Act in the Senate, is also concerned about these collateral consequences. http://tinyurl.com/atwqha

Can a Parolee
Have a Drink?

A court says Pennsylvania cannot bar parolees from alcohol unless their crime was based on it.
http://tinyurl.com/atwqha

Mandatory Minimum
Crack Sentences Unfair

 The Supreme Court and Sentencing Commission say judges may have discretion in sentences involving crack and cocaine and that it can be retroactive.

The New York Times struck an editorial blow for basic fairness and judicial independence http://tinyurl.com/awevhk

The Sentencing Project and Marc Mauer deserve a lot of credit for this. They are asking for contributions to continue the fight at: www.sentencingproject.org/Contribute.aspx

Shorter sentences?

The JFA Report says major criminologists and penal experts recommend shorter sentences for technical parole and probation violations.

“…there is little if any scientific evidence of a causal relationship between crime rates and incarceration rates,” says James Austin, president of the JFA Institute and report co-author. :”There is no evidence that keeping people in prison longer makes us any safer.” And it is “financially wasteful.”

“Unlocking America” calls for improving prison conditions by reducing overcrowding and expanding access to health care, academic and vocational programs and by lifting barriers to employment and restoring voting rights. It also calls for decriminalization of the possession and sale of recreational drugs, and claims that it would generate savings of $20 billion. Today, $60 billion is spent on corrections.

The JFA Institute seeks research-based solutions to criminal justice issues.

FinalCall.com quotes the Nation of Islam about the report’s findings, especially that blacks and minorities are imprisoned six times more often than whites.

Abdullah Muhammad, of the Nation of Islam’s National Prison Ministry, offered a simple solution. “Give the Nation of Islam three years unhindered to teach the life-giving teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in the country’s prisons. We have a complete program to have our people totally freed to build a reality for ourselves,” he said.

Releasing the Elderly
Being Tried in Midwest

From: Charles Sullivan <cure@curenational.org>

Guidelines for the Illinois bill include:

*Have to be age 50 and served 25 consecutive years to be eligible to submit petition to the sentencing court. Many researchers use 50 as age to define elderly in prison due to stress, medical care and pre prison life style. Recidivism rate for elderly much, much lower than any other group. Pennsylvania study indicated prisoners with age of those covered by HB 4154 was about 2%,

*Bill includes a provision that a program similar to Impact of Crime on Victims Class (ICVC) program currently used in Missouri prison. Mothers of Murdered Children from metro East Louis area currently do restorative justice part of ICVC program in Missouri and are eager to do the same in Illinois. They are supportive of HB 4254 and will provide testimony as will Missouri prison officials.

*HB 4154 will reduce IDOC expenditure by $70,000 for each prisoner who is released.”

*Identify yourself as a member of Citizens for Earned Release (CER) and mention that our coalition can reach several thousand people. Mention Illinoisprisontalk as internet blog for information as well as CER website.”

www.ilcer.org or www.illinoisprisontalk.com


Adult System Said to Worsen
Juvenile Recidivism

A CDC report says juveniles tried as adults and sent to adult prisons come out to commit more violent crimes more often. www.cdc.gov.

And in The Washington Post:
http://tinyurl.com/arhty8

Don’t give up on them

Studies and polls say the public wants juveniles rehabilitated and not tried as adults. In Maryland, 14-year-olds can be handled as adult criminals. Our state is trying what has been successful in Missouri, but it seems to be an uphill struggle. The public wants us to try.

Solutions Include
40-hr. Work Week

The Third Way proposes Required Rehab Programs

The 40-hour Work Week program would require prisoners to spend 40 hours on self-improvement each week. They would take part in individually tailored activities that instill personal responsibility and a strict work ethic. The curriculum could include education, counseling, substance abuse treatment, anger management and skills trainings

Support for prison rehabilitation programs inside climbs from 55 percent to 90 percent when they are defined as a requirement and not a benefit to the prison population.

By a margin of 90 to 6 percent, Americans said they were more likely to support a candidate who says, “Prisoners should be forced to work, get an education and learn skills …
http://tinyurl.com/daevqu

Collateral Consequences and Barriers:
Ex-offenders are finding still that felony convictions throw up a dozen barriers in many communities.

The Hamilton Project of the Brookings Institution  hosted Dec. 5 at the National Press Club a policy discussion on the challenges of prisoner reentry, featuring remarks by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin and a keynote address by U.S. Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.). The event also included a policy roundtable with a diverse group of experts on the need for a national prisoner reentry strategy.

One idea is to put ex-offenders into a year of transitional employment in community service. http://tinyurl.com/p6yuvx

Relief from Collateral Consequences of Criminal Convictions State by State: The Sentencing Project has listed some of the consequences and how to mitigate them. Talk to your legislators about what you find in your state.
http://tinyurl.com/qlzkua

Reentry is spreading across the country as states recognize that the cost of corrections can exceed the cost of colleges

A Google “reentry” alert in one day brought up programs in Rhode Island, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Minnesota that work to provide jobs, drug counseling, housing and mentors to ex-offenders.