Politics of Prison
The Action Committee For Women In Prison
769 Northwestern Drive
Claremont, CA 91711
769 Northwestern Drive
Claremont, CA 91711
How California's lifers are dying inside
Like thousands, Randall Ellis will likely never get parole. But do we really want prisons to become elderly homes for offenders?
N 1981, when Randall Ellis was 16 years old, he participated in a robbery in which his co-defendant shot and killed a young store clerk. Because he took part in a robbery that led to a murder, he was found guilty of the murder and was tried as an adult by the state of California, which chose to impose the maximum sentence the law would allow, of 25 years to life.
Thirty-one years later, Randall is still in prison and his chances of ever being released are slim at best.
There are around 32,000 inmates, 20% of California's total prison population, in the "lifer" category to which Randall now belongs. Approximately 8,000 of them are "three strikes" offenders. Being a lifer means you received a sentence of "15 to life" or "25 to life", so you must serve out the 15 years or the 25 years (or whatever number you were assigned) before you become eligible for parole. These lifers, known as LWPs (life with parole) do not include the much smaller category of prisoners known as LWOP (life without parole) who committed crimes so heinous they were sentenced effectively to die in prison. But it appears that the line between LWPs and LWOPs has become increasingly blurred, as so few prisoners are being granted parole in the past 20 years that "to life" is starting to seem an awful lot like "for life".
This means, of course, that the number of older and geriatric prisoners are growing. By the end of 2009, there were 11,000 prisoners over the age of 55. (Prisoners' physiological age tends to be 10-15 years more their chronological age due to the stress of incarceration, so 55 counts as elderly.) This number is expected to triple to over 30,000 within the next decade or so (PDF), which will put extraordinary pressure on a state that is already being bankrupted in part by its overcrowded prisons.
Older prisoners cost about three times as much to incarcerate as their younger counterparts, mostly due to healthcare costs. Whether the general public like it or not, the state is constitutionally obliged by the eighth amendment to provide inmates with adequate healthcare, and the cost of doing so already exceeds $2bn a year. According to Liz Gransee of the Receiver's Office (PDF), which oversees medical care in California's prisons, 90% of their healthcare costs come from the older population. Some of inmates they treat are in their eighties.
Randall turned 47 this month, and although he believes he should have been let out at least ten years ago, statistically, his chances of growing old in prison are far greater than his chance of being released.
"I've been kept here way past any reasonable period of time, considering that I was just a kid in the wrong place, with the wrong people to begin with. Over the years, the justifications have changed. They don't even consider my age, and somehow put me beyond the thinking capacity of a 16 year-old who made bad choices to somehow being beyond that."
I don't know if Randall should have been released ten years ago or not. The parole board obviously has better knowledge of whether or not he may still be a threat to society. He does raise an interesting point, however, that a person's motivations and understanding are very different at 47 than they were at 16. Statistics consistently show that people tend to "age out of crime" (PDF). Nationwide, the recidivism rate for inmates aged between 16 and 29 is over 50%; for inmates 55 and older, the rate drops to 2%, rendering the chance of an elderly inmate re-offending upon release almost negligible.
But still, they remain locked up. In 2008, for instance, 7,308 lifers were eligible for parole. Only 294 were approved by the parole board, and of those, 81 were denied by then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and more than 30 were sent back for review. In the end, fewer than 60 inmates were released. There has been a slight improvement in the number of paroles granted since Governor Brown took over, but still, more than 80% of requests are denied.
Public safety is generally cited as the reason for keeping people in prison indefinitely, and no one – least of all a politician who will be facing re-election – wants their signature on the parole form of an inmate who murders somebody's loved one upon their release. Considered in that light, granting parole is not a decision to be taken lightly.
But the fact remains that the billions of dollars spent each year keeping prisoners locked up for life are billions being diverted from the kinds of programs that might have prevented them from getting locked up in the first place.
Interested parties should write to:
Sadhbh Walshe
PO Box 1466
New York, NY 10150
How California's lifers are dying inside
Like thousands, Randall Ellis will likely never get parole. But do we really want prisons to become elderly homes for offenders?
N 1981, when Randall Ellis was 16 years old, he participated in a robbery in which his co-defendant shot and killed a young store clerk. Because he took part in a robbery that led to a murder, he was found guilty of the murder and was tried as an adult by the state of California, which chose to impose the maximum sentence the law would allow, of 25 years to life.
Thirty-one years later, Randall is still in prison and his chances of ever being released are slim at best.
There are around 32,000 inmates, 20% of California's total prison population, in the "lifer" category to which Randall now belongs. Approximately 8,000 of them are "three strikes" offenders. Being a lifer means you received a sentence of "15 to life" or "25 to life", so you must serve out the 15 years or the 25 years (or whatever number you were assigned) before you become eligible for parole. These lifers, known as LWPs (life with parole) do not include the much smaller category of prisoners known as LWOP (life without parole) who committed crimes so heinous they were sentenced effectively to die in prison. But it appears that the line between LWPs and LWOPs has become increasingly blurred, as so few prisoners are being granted parole in the past 20 years that "to life" is starting to seem an awful lot like "for life".
This means, of course, that the number of older and geriatric prisoners are growing. By the end of 2009, there were 11,000 prisoners over the age of 55. (Prisoners' physiological age tends to be 10-15 years more their chronological age due to the stress of incarceration, so 55 counts as elderly.) This number is expected to triple to over 30,000 within the next decade or so (PDF), which will put extraordinary pressure on a state that is already being bankrupted in part by its overcrowded prisons.
Older prisoners cost about three times as much to incarcerate as their younger counterparts, mostly due to healthcare costs. Whether the general public like it or not, the state is constitutionally obliged by the eighth amendment to provide inmates with adequate healthcare, and the cost of doing so already exceeds $2bn a year. According to Liz Gransee of the Receiver's Office (PDF), which oversees medical care in California's prisons, 90% of their healthcare costs come from the older population. Some of inmates they treat are in their eighties.
Randall turned 47 this month, and although he believes he should have been let out at least ten years ago, statistically, his chances of growing old in prison are far greater than his chance of being released.
"I've been kept here way past any reasonable period of time, considering that I was just a kid in the wrong place, with the wrong people to begin with. Over the years, the justifications have changed. They don't even consider my age, and somehow put me beyond the thinking capacity of a 16 year-old who made bad choices to somehow being beyond that."
I don't know if Randall should have been released ten years ago or not. The parole board obviously has better knowledge of whether or not he may still be a threat to society. He does raise an interesting point, however, that a person's motivations and understanding are very different at 47 than they were at 16. Statistics consistently show that people tend to "age out of crime" (PDF). Nationwide, the recidivism rate for inmates aged between 16 and 29 is over 50%; for inmates 55 and older, the rate drops to 2%, rendering the chance of an elderly inmate re-offending upon release almost negligible.
But still, they remain locked up. In 2008, for instance, 7,308 lifers were eligible for parole. Only 294 were approved by the parole board, and of those, 81 were denied by then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and more than 30 were sent back for review. In the end, fewer than 60 inmates were released. There has been a slight improvement in the number of paroles granted since Governor Brown took over, but still, more than 80% of requests are denied.
Public safety is generally cited as the reason for keeping people in prison indefinitely, and no one – least of all a politician who will be facing re-election – wants their signature on the parole form of an inmate who murders somebody's loved one upon their release. Considered in that light, granting parole is not a decision to be taken lightly.
But the fact remains that the billions of dollars spent each year keeping prisoners locked up for life are billions being diverted from the kinds of programs that might have prevented them from getting locked up in the first place.
Interested parties should write to:
Sadhbh Walshe
PO Box 1466
New York, NY 10150
PO Box 1466
New York, NY 10150
State leaders demanding full pardon for Scott sisters
By Alice Thomas-Tisdale
Jackson Advocate Publisher
Attorney Chokwe Lumumba held a press conference last week to respond to former governor Haley Barbour’s lopsided exiting pardons. He said although many of the pardons were deserving, including one his former clients, not enough was done to right the wrong of Mississippi giving a full pardon to Jamie and Gladys Scott, who served 16 years for a $11 robbery they deny responsibility for.
“It is not a requirement for a pardon to admit guilt,” noted Lumumba. “To not pardon the Scott sisters is an act of injustice. They will continue to have to look over their shoulders, afraid that their freedoms will be snatched from them at the first infraction,” he said. “They are terrified. They do not want to go back to prison.” The cost of supervision, which is absorbed by Mississippi taxpayers, is also a reason to allow the Scott sisters to pursue a life of normalcy.
Lumumba plans to appeal to Governor Phil Bryant to reexamine the issue. But there is no wait and see attitude among human rights activists. The Full Pardon Campaign Committee for the Scott Sisters is taking action by hosting the National Day of Justice Conference in Jackson, April 2-4, 2012.
Among the planned events is The Rally for Justice, which will involve national as well as state and local leaders. For details, call 601-353-4455.
****************************************************
By Alice Thomas-Tisdale
Jackson Advocate Publisher
Attorney Chokwe Lumumba held a press conference last week to respond to former governor Haley Barbour’s lopsided exiting pardons. He said although many of the pardons were deserving, including one his former clients, not enough was done to right the wrong of Mississippi giving a full pardon to Jamie and Gladys Scott, who served 16 years for a $11 robbery they deny responsibility for.
“It is not a requirement for a pardon to admit guilt,” noted Lumumba. “To not pardon the Scott sisters is an act of injustice. They will continue to have to look over their shoulders, afraid that their freedoms will be snatched from them at the first infraction,” he said. “They are terrified. They do not want to go back to prison.” The cost of supervision, which is absorbed by Mississippi taxpayers, is also a reason to allow the Scott sisters to pursue a life of normalcy.
Lumumba plans to appeal to Governor Phil Bryant to reexamine the issue. But there is no wait and see attitude among human rights activists. The Full Pardon Campaign Committee for the Scott Sisters is taking action by hosting the National Day of Justice Conference in Jackson, April 2-4, 2012.
Among the planned events is The Rally for Justice, which will involve national as well as state and local leaders. For details, call 601-353-4455.
****************************************************
Collateral Damage: Children and Prison Reform in California
Today’s guest blog is by Karin Drucker. Karin has worked in juvenile justice advocacy and research in California with the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. She has also worked at the Children’s Defense Fund and the White House Initiative on Tribal Colleges and Universities.
Type “California” into a Google news search and chances are good that your browser will turn up headlines about prisons. Since October 1, 2011 the state has started to deliver on a mandate from the U.S. Supreme Court to remove 33,000 people from its bloated prison population. In this fast and furious process called realignment, it is easy to forget a crucial population: children. The majority of incarcerated people in California are parents. As described in my last post, realignment offers enormous opportunity to change the status quo corrections practices as non-sexual, non-violent, and non-serious offenders will now be sentenced to serve in county jails. Can children benefit from it?
Children are the collateral damage of corrections systems. Since 1991, the number of children with a mother in prison has increased by more than 131 percent. Nationwide, half of children whose mothers are incarcerated are under age ten and at high risk for entering foster care systems. The majority of parents in state prison—54 percent of fathers and 73 percent of mothers—are convicted of non-violent offenses, including drug and property offenses.
“When a parent is locked up in jail or prison … the impact on … children is traumatic,” notes Tanya Krupat, director of the New York Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents. “Many of the children, particularly of incarcerated mothers, end up in foster care. They may endure shame and humiliation, face an increased risk for developing mental health problems, experience school failure or drop out.”
Despite fears from corrections officials and many of California’s “tough on crime” politicians that realignment will increase crime, most potential benefits of realignment match the needs of children. Three issues relating to realignment will hopefully better the experience of these children. First, those incarcerated will likely be closer to their families. Second, California is implementing reentry programs specifically geared to grant early release for women, most of whom have children. Finally, financial hardship will hopefully force counties to implement low-cost alternatives to jailing that take children’s needs into account.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that, nationwide, more than half of prisoners with children live more than 100 miles from where they lived before prison. Given that they usually come from poverty, their families typically cannot afford the costs of travel. The running hypothesis among advocates is that detaining individuals closer to home will lower costs of visiting and allow parents and children more contact. However, the solution is not quite so simple. County jails were not designed to house inmates for long periods and are therefore less equipped than state prisons to accommodate visitors; they frequently lack a physical space for families to meet. Jails will need to rise to the occasion if children are to benefit from being closer to their parents.
In addition, California has developed an early release program for women. Nineteen thousand California children have mothers convicted of non-violent offenses, and the disproportionate impact of realignment on female prisoners heightens the need to support women leaving the system. The program is based on a 2010 Washington State bill, SSB 6639, which created alternatives to prison confinement for some non-violent offenders who are parents. The sponsor of California’s alternative realignment program for women, State Senator Carol Liu (District 21), says that her goal is to reunite families and save money by decreasing recidivism. Currently, it costs an average of $49,000 per year to house an adult in state prison. Liu’s prediction of cost-savings is most likely correct since research suggests that visitation significantly increases parent-child attachment, perhaps the mechanism for demonstrated decreases in recidivism.
As of October 2011, roughly 9,500 California women fell into the “non-non-non” category, a prerequisite for the new program. In order to enter the alternative release program, however, qualified women must prove that they have secured housing for themselves in treatment facilities, transitional houses, or their own homes.
Advocate Karen Shain, Policy Director with Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, worries that the program sets women up to fail. Most face enormous obstacles. Wendy Still, San Francisco County’s chief of probation, notes that approximately 85 percent of her female client population has suffered either physical or emotional abuse, frequently from intimate partners, and rarely have stable homes to which they can return. It is no surprise, then, that although thousands qualify for the alternative release program, only 20 women were eligible as of last October.
Some counties have modeled other programs for mothers that could ease the reentry process under realignment. However, Barry Krisberg, criminal justice expert and a Director of Research and Policy at UC Berkeley school of law suggests that these programs “will work well in some places [where] you have a critical mass of people that want to innovate: prison less, community more. But there’s just a dozen of them at the best.” Yali Lincroft, children’s policy consultant for First Focus and Annie E. Casey Foundation, concurs. She says that the benefits of realignment hinge on whether county jails and services will not just have less incarceration but supplant it with programs like parenting classes, housing assistance, and substance abuse training.
San Francisco County has done a good job. It has created groundbreaking programs such as One Family and Parenting Inside Out, both run by the non-profit Community Works. The former offers parent/child contact visits to every eligible parent incarcerated in San Francisco’s County Jails; the latter runs a parent education program designed specifically for incarcerated men and women.
According to Lincroft, this program also tapped into GED funding streams to the jail and solicited private contributions from the Zellerbach Family Foundation. Collaboration between county, city, and non-profit services will allow counties to use AB 109 funds efficiently and creatively. Unfortunately, budget constraints mean that even in a county devoted to reentry support these programs have a very uncertain future. (It’s important to note the compounding impact of programs serving this population of children. On January 8, Governor Brown mimicked former Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2008 budget cut strategy when he proposed deep cuts to the California Healthy Families Program. This change could devastate almost a million children, including many children of incarcerated parents.)
In Lincroft’s handbook for social workers, When a Parent is Incarcerated, she describes the ways in which profound harm occurs when social services and police fail to coordinate. A parent’s arrest can result in traumatizing exposure to the arrest, interrogation by police, or being left unattended and staying on their own, even caring for younger siblings, until noticed by neighbors or teachers. They are at risk of being placed unnecessarily in the foster care system because no one arranged for a family member or friend who to care for them.
California is strapped for cash, but this is no excuse for poor practices. Counties can spend little to no extra funds and still make a huge impact by betting social services’, corrections’, and law enforcement’s practices around children of systems-involved parents. Improvements should include:
- Developing arrest protocols with police and probation departments when children are present at the time of parental arrest in order to reduce trauma and harm to children and unnecessary involvement with the child welfare system;
- Improving visitation policy, telephone access, and physical visiting room environments to be more conducive to parent-child interaction;
- Providing parents a mandated period of time to arrange childcare when law enforcement arrests them or orders “flash incarceration” (a new policy that enables parole and probation violators to be detained for up to ten days).
Finally, Governor Brown’s recent announcement that he plans to cut the corrections budgets by $1 billion might be a blessing. Counties can currently choose to spend AB 109 funds on prison construction rather than community-based programs, but Brown’s plan contains a clause allowing the state to halt prison construction. He can make good on his intentions to better corrections if he incentivizes reentry support and makes state funds contingent on family-supportive policies. These moves make sense. It is rare, though, that corrections systems—let alone a California governor—examines itself through the eyes of a child. I hope this is one of those times.
Collateral Damage: Children and Prison Reform in California
Today’s guest blog is by Karin Drucker. Karin has worked in juvenile justice advocacy and research in California with the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. She has also worked at the Children’s Defense Fund and the White House Initiative on Tribal Colleges and Universities.Type “California” into a Google news search and chances are good that your browser will turn up headlines about prisons. Since October 1, 2011 the state has started to deliver on a mandate from the U.S. Supreme Court to remove 33,000 people from its bloated prison population. In this fast and furious process called realignment, it is easy to forget a crucial population: children. The majority of incarcerated people in California are parents. As described in my last post, realignment offers enormous opportunity to change the status quo corrections practices as non-sexual, non-violent, and non-serious offenders will now be sentenced to serve in county jails. Can children benefit from it?
Children are the collateral damage of corrections systems. Since 1991, the number of children with a mother in prison has increased by more than 131 percent. Nationwide, half of children whose mothers are incarcerated are under age ten and at high risk for entering foster care systems. The majority of parents in state prison—54 percent of fathers and 73 percent of mothers—are convicted of non-violent offenses, including drug and property offenses.
“When a parent is locked up in jail or prison … the impact on … children is traumatic,” notes Tanya Krupat, director of the New York Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents. “Many of the children, particularly of incarcerated mothers, end up in foster care. They may endure shame and humiliation, face an increased risk for developing mental health problems, experience school failure or drop out.”
Despite fears from corrections officials and many of California’s “tough on crime” politicians that realignment will increase crime, most potential benefits of realignment match the needs of children. Three issues relating to realignment will hopefully better the experience of these children. First, those incarcerated will likely be closer to their families. Second, California is implementing reentry programs specifically geared to grant early release for women, most of whom have children. Finally, financial hardship will hopefully force counties to implement low-cost alternatives to jailing that take children’s needs into account.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that, nationwide, more than half of prisoners with children live more than 100 miles from where they lived before prison. Given that they usually come from poverty, their families typically cannot afford the costs of travel. The running hypothesis among advocates is that detaining individuals closer to home will lower costs of visiting and allow parents and children more contact. However, the solution is not quite so simple. County jails were not designed to house inmates for long periods and are therefore less equipped than state prisons to accommodate visitors; they frequently lack a physical space for families to meet. Jails will need to rise to the occasion if children are to benefit from being closer to their parents.
In addition, California has developed an early release program for women. Nineteen thousand California children have mothers convicted of non-violent offenses, and the disproportionate impact of realignment on female prisoners heightens the need to support women leaving the system. The program is based on a 2010 Washington State bill, SSB 6639, which created alternatives to prison confinement for some non-violent offenders who are parents. The sponsor of California’s alternative realignment program for women, State Senator Carol Liu (District 21), says that her goal is to reunite families and save money by decreasing recidivism. Currently, it costs an average of $49,000 per year to house an adult in state prison. Liu’s prediction of cost-savings is most likely correct since research suggests that visitation significantly increases parent-child attachment, perhaps the mechanism for demonstrated decreases in recidivism.
As of October 2011, roughly 9,500 California women fell into the “non-non-non” category, a prerequisite for the new program. In order to enter the alternative release program, however, qualified women must prove that they have secured housing for themselves in treatment facilities, transitional houses, or their own homes.
Advocate Karen Shain, Policy Director with Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, worries that the program sets women up to fail. Most face enormous obstacles. Wendy Still, San Francisco County’s chief of probation, notes that approximately 85 percent of her female client population has suffered either physical or emotional abuse, frequently from intimate partners, and rarely have stable homes to which they can return. It is no surprise, then, that although thousands qualify for the alternative release program, only 20 women were eligible as of last October.
Some counties have modeled other programs for mothers that could ease the reentry process under realignment. However, Barry Krisberg, criminal justice expert and a Director of Research and Policy at UC Berkeley school of law suggests that these programs “will work well in some places [where] you have a critical mass of people that want to innovate: prison less, community more. But there’s just a dozen of them at the best.” Yali Lincroft, children’s policy consultant for First Focus and Annie E. Casey Foundation, concurs. She says that the benefits of realignment hinge on whether county jails and services will not just have less incarceration but supplant it with programs like parenting classes, housing assistance, and substance abuse training.
San Francisco County has done a good job. It has created groundbreaking programs such as One Family and Parenting Inside Out, both run by the non-profit Community Works. The former offers parent/child contact visits to every eligible parent incarcerated in San Francisco’s County Jails; the latter runs a parent education program designed specifically for incarcerated men and women.
According to Lincroft, this program also tapped into GED funding streams to the jail and solicited private contributions from the Zellerbach Family Foundation. Collaboration between county, city, and non-profit services will allow counties to use AB 109 funds efficiently and creatively. Unfortunately, budget constraints mean that even in a county devoted to reentry support these programs have a very uncertain future. (It’s important to note the compounding impact of programs serving this population of children. On January 8, Governor Brown mimicked former Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2008 budget cut strategy when he proposed deep cuts to the California Healthy Families Program. This change could devastate almost a million children, including many children of incarcerated parents.)
In Lincroft’s handbook for social workers, When a Parent is Incarcerated, she describes the ways in which profound harm occurs when social services and police fail to coordinate. A parent’s arrest can result in traumatizing exposure to the arrest, interrogation by police, or being left unattended and staying on their own, even caring for younger siblings, until noticed by neighbors or teachers. They are at risk of being placed unnecessarily in the foster care system because no one arranged for a family member or friend who to care for them.
California is strapped for cash, but this is no excuse for poor practices. Counties can spend little to no extra funds and still make a huge impact by betting social services’, corrections’, and law enforcement’s practices around children of systems-involved parents. Improvements should include:
- Developing arrest protocols with police and probation departments when children are present at the time of parental arrest in order to reduce trauma and harm to children and unnecessary involvement with the child welfare system;
- Improving visitation policy, telephone access, and physical visiting room environments to be more conducive to parent-child interaction;
- Providing parents a mandated period of time to arrange childcare when law enforcement arrests them or orders “flash incarceration” (a new policy that enables parole and probation violators to be detained for up to ten days).
Finally, Governor Brown’s recent announcement that he plans to cut the corrections budgets by $1 billion might be a blessing. Counties can currently choose to spend AB 109 funds on prison construction rather than community-based programs, but Brown’s plan contains a clause allowing the state to halt prison construction. He can make good on his intentions to better corrections if he incentivizes reentry support and makes state funds contingent on family-supportive policies. These moves make sense. It is rare, though, that corrections systems—let alone a California governor—examines itself through the eyes of a child. I hope this is one of those times.
