How the Juvenile Justice System Failed Me and How to Fix It

How the Juvenile Justice System Failed Me and How to Fix It | Criminal Justice | Change.org.

I was 5’6” tall and only 125 pounds. This is what I tell people when they ask what was it like being in prison at 16. Even before I pled guilty there was no real consideration given to my size, my immaturity or the prospects for my survival as I was placed in jail cells and blocks with adults. I hadn’t won a fight in years and couldn’t imagine be locked inside a cell with men as violent as reports about prisons in Virginia said. The court process was concerned with whether I was guilty or innocent; my family was lost, trying to figure out how I’d gotten myself in handcuffs.

An eight-year sentence left with me time to piece together what led me to pick up a gun and carjack a man, searching for the answers I couldn’t give the judge and dealing with what it means to live in a place that is governed by violence. More than that, however, I spent time believing that I could get an education to craft my life into something more than a series of jail cells. Often, years passed and I found myself in prisons so far away from my family that I couldn’t get a visit. Phone calls were so expensive that I only heard the voices of guards, other prisoners and the sounds that came into my head as I read books and letters. I thought my release would be a way to end the nightmare of living with a mistake, but I was wrong.

A prison sentence, no matter the amount of time given, is a life sentence. I would need both hands to number the opportunities I lost because of my felony, because people chose to define me by a moment of insanity. There is no way to truly measure the impact of being released from prison only to find closing doors.

I came home began working toward a college degree. After two years at community college, I found myself graduating with a 3.85 grade point average and a full tuition scholarship to Howard University –- except Howard University decided that my felony conviction made me unworthy to be a student. I could talk about the employers that passed me over and how moving from one day to the next became a challenge. You get released from prison and want to be a citizen. Instead you find that people aren’t only skeptical, but most are unwilling to give you a chance. I must admit, however, that I did find a number of people who went against the grain and gave me an opportunity.

In May 2009, two years after receiving a scholarship from the University of Maryland, I graduated and had the honor of being the student commencement speaker. That night was a far cry from the afternoon my family watched as the Honorable Judge Bach sentenced me to nine years in prison. That day, no one in the room believed I would survive prison, let alone graduate from college.

When I was incarcerated, the Justice and Delinquency Prevention Reauthorization Act (JJDPA) offered measures that should have protected me. There was the measure prohibiting adults and juveniles being confined together during pretrial detention and other rules that would have given my family hope that I wouldn’t be physically threatened daily. Unfortunately, the legislation wasn’t enforced.

Today, we have the opportunity to pass a stronger JJDPA, and I hope that we come together and do so, because this is a bill truly designed to protect those among us who cannot protect themselves.

Today, 13 years after my incarceration, I am a husband and a father, a college graduate and a published writer. In my memoir, A Question of Freedom, I wrote about what it was like to be in an adult prison system, about the violence and the lack of programming. I wrote about the astonishing way men discover their lost humanity in some of the harshest conditions imaginable. The JJDPA should be reauthorized, because it can be a part of keeping young people who have run astray of the law from inheriting the nightmares that ruin men as they pay their debt to society.

Take Action! Tell the Senate: Pass Juvenile Justice Reform Now!

The Crime Report � Archive � The Graying of America’s Prisons

The Crime Report � Archive � The Graying of America’s Prisons

The Graying of America’s Prisons

By James Ridgeway

Monday, December 7th, 2009 4:00 am

Frank Soffen, now 70 years old, has lived more than half his life in prison, and will likely die there.

Sentenced to life for second-degree murder, Soffen has suffered four heart attacks and is confined to a wheelchair. He has lately been held in the assisted living wing of Massachusetts’ Norfolk prison. Because of his failing health and his exemplary record over his 37 years behind bars—which includes rescuing a guard being threatened by other inmates—Soffen has been held up as a candidate for release on medical and compassionate grounds.

He is physically incapable of committing a violent crime, has already participated in pre-release and furlough programs, and has a supportive family and a place to live with his son. One of the members of the Massachusetts state parole board spoke in favor of his release. But in 2006 the board voted to deny Soffen parole. He will not be eligible for review for another five years.

The “tough on crime” posturing and policymaking that have dominated American politics for more than three decades have left behind a grim legacy. Longer sentences and harsher parole standards have led to overcrowded prisons, overtaxed state budgets, and devastated families and communities. Now, yet another consequence is becoming visible in the nation’s prisons and jails: a huge and ever-growing numbers of geriatric inmates.

Increasingly, the cells and dormitories of the United States are filled with old, often sick men and women. They hobble around the tiers with walkers or roll in wheelchairs fill prison infirmaries. They fill prison infirmaries, assisted living wings, and hospices faster than the state and federal governments can build them—and since many are dying behind bars, they are filling the mortuaries and graveyards as well.

The care these aging prisoners receive, while often grossly inadequate, is nonetheless cripplingly expensive—so much so that some recession-strapped states are for the first time seriously considering releasing older terminally ill and mentally ill prisoners rather than pay the heavy price for their warehousing. It remains to be seen what will happen when such fiscal concerns run head on into America’s taste for punitive justice. A recent report by the Vera Institute made this clear.

Politicians no doubt did not imagine this Dickensian landscape of the elderly incarcerated when they voted to lengthen sentences and impose mandatory minimums three or four decades ago. But their actions are yielding an inevitable outcome. While the graying of the prison population to some extent reflects the changing demographics of the populace at large, it owes considerably more to changes in law and policy. And this is likely to continue into the foreseeable future.

Growing Old Behind Bars

According to the Sentencing Project, the United States imprisons five times as many people as it did 30 years ago and more than seven times as many as it did 40 years ago. Our criminal justice system now keeps 2.3 million people behind bars—about half of them for drug offenses and other nonviolent crimes. Twenty-five years ago, there were 34,000 prisoners serving life sentences; today the number is more than 140,000. The fact that each person is spending a longer stretch behind bars means that the falling crime rates of the 1990s do not translate into fewer inmates. It also means that more and more people who committed offenses in their 20s or even their teens are growing old and dying in prison.

The situation is particularly stark in California, Texas and Florida, which have large prison populations with cells crammed to overflowing because of harsh sentencing laws. In California, the population of prisoners over 55 doubled in the ten years from 1997 to 2006. About 20 percent of California prisoners are serving life sentences, and over 10 percent are serving life without the possibility of parole. Louisiana’s prison system now holds more than 5,000 people over the age of 50—a three-fold increase in the last 12 years.

While 50 or 55 may not be old by conventional standards, people age faster behind bars than they do on the outside: Studies have shown that prisoners in their 50s are on average physiologically 10 to 15 years older than their chronological age. Older prisoners require substantial medical care, because of harsh life conditions as well as age. Inmates begin to have trouble climbing to upper bunks, walking, standing on line, and handling other parts of the prison routine. They suffer from early losses of hearing and eyesight, have high rates of high blood pressure and diabetes, and are susceptible to falls.

A recent study by Brie Williams and Rita Albraldes, published as a chapter in the book Growing Older: Challenges of Prison and Reentry for the Aging Population, found that in addition to the chronic diseases that increase with age, older offenders have problems such as paraplegia because of the legacy of gunshot wounds. Many have advanced liver disease, renal disease, or hepatitis. Still others suffer from HIV-AIDS, and many more from drug and alcohol abuse. Living under prison conditions, they are more likely to get pneumonia and flu.

Many prisons are notorious for not taking their inmates’ health complaints seriously, and there is anecdotal evidence this problem may be compounded when prisoners are elderly. A doctor under contract in one southern prison told me in a recent interview how a diabetic man’s illness was misdiagnosed, resulting in months of excruciating pain and the amputation of toes and part of one foot. Back in prison, the man asked for prosthetic shoes so he could get around by walking; his request was denied.

Another elderly prisoner complained of an earache which went untreated for months. When it became unbearably painful, the prisoner was shipped to a local hospital emergency room, under contract to the prison. There the doctors found the earache was brain cancer—and by then, too advanced to treat.

The exploding prison population has further undermined the already questionable quality of inmate medical care. In California, which has the nation’s largest number of state prisoners, a panel of federal judges earlier this year found that the state of medical care was so poor that it violated the constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and in danger of routinely costing prisoners their lives. The only solution, the judges said, was to reduce prison overcrowding caused by the states draconian mandatory sentences; it recommended shortening sentences and reforming parole, which they believed would have no impact on public safety; it has given California three years to comply.

NEXT: Challenging the status quo for geriatric prisoners

James Ridgeway is the senior Washington correspondent for Mother Jones.

Article: Statehouse Rally Calls For Prison Reform - Prison Talk

Article: Statehouse Rally Calls For Prison Reform - Prison Talk

N.J. Statehouse rally for prison reform draws crowd

By Chris Megerian/Statehouse Bureau

December 07, 2009, 2:41PM

AP Photo/Mel EvansAssemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Mercer) in a 2008 file photo.
TRENTON -- A crowd rallied in support of prison reform in front of the Statehouse today, cheering on Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman as she pushes her bills through the Legislature.

"We're not asking for anyone to be given a free ride. But if you live and you breath, you have made mistakes," she said. "If you don't have a chance to correct those mistakes, you will continue to make them."

Supporters waved signs reading "Support treatment not jail" and "Give people a second chance."

A package of legislation would allow former inmates to receive financial help from state welfare programs, encourage the corrections system to place prisoners in facilities close to their families and seek ways to maintain bonds between incarcerated parents and their children.

One of the laws would require inmates to finish high school classes and receive vocational training.

The state would shed almost $5 million if one of the bills (A4197) is passed, according to estimates from the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services. The bills are in danger of failing because lawmakers are hesitant to spend any money with the state's deficit hitting $1 billion in the current budget year.

Watson Coleman (D-Mercer) said her legislation will save money down the line because more former inmates would be educated and working.

"These individuals will not need to worry about being on a whole realm of public support," she said. "We'll have people contributing as taxpayers."

Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden) did not post the bills for a vote today, but Watson Coleman said she's working to get them on the calendar for the Jan. 7 session.

Roberts has said he supports the bills, saying it "looks to be a very smart approach to saving taxpayer dollars and helping give those released from our prisons a better chance at success.”

Arthur Townes, who helps former inmates find housing, jobs and rehabilitation programs, said people face "double jeopardy" when they commit a crime in New Jersey. After they're convicted, he said, they're penalized again by a myriad of state laws and regulations.

Watson Coleman's bills could help change that, he said.

"It will give ex-offenders and people who slipped and went another way another chance," he said. "It's something we say they deserve, but the laws don't support."

Darryl Mikell Brooks, a former political candidate, said he supports the bills but doesn't expect today's rally to be effective.

"The people leading this don't have the strength, don't have the votes," he said. "I hate to see people get all excited."

Christie can cut budget by reforming corrections

Christie can cut budget by reforming corrections

Saturday, November 28, 2009

STAFF WRITER

Facing a projected 30 percent state budget shortfall, New Jersey is knee-deep in one of the worst fiscal messes of any state in the nation, according to a Pew Center on the States report released Nov. 11. Gov.-elect Chris Christie desperately needs ways to slash expenditures -- as painlessly as possible. Here's a proven and widely recommended way to cut expenses significantly, while enhancing public safety, strengthening community infrastructure and building ties with a large political constituency -- African-Americans -- that now stands alienated from the incoming governor's Republican Party.

Community corrections programs provide alternatives to prison. For example, a youth convicted of a repeat drug offense might be placed on a regimen of electronic surveillance, frequent unannounced drug testing, mental health counseling and job- and life-skills training. For stealing, reckless driving and wrecking a car, an auto thief might face a brief stint in the county jail, restitution to the owner, faith-based community service and lengthy ineligibility for a driver's license.

Pioneered in California by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan, the community corrections approach remains an effective way for states to gain dollar savings. For example, a 2008 Arizona law and a 2007 Kansas law both give counties cash incentives to keep offenders on probation and out of their state prisons.

In New Jersey, imprisoning an offender costs about $39,000 every year. By avoiding expensive incarcerations, community corrections programs have a huge budgetary impact. According to a rigorous multi-study evaluation, a long-standing program in Ohio that focuses on juveniles, called RECLAIM, saves between $11 and $45 for every dollar spent on community corrections. That's a better return than Bernie Madoff promised his most gullible customers. And, the Ohio researchers say, the return is greatest for programs that focus on offenders who face long prison sentences.

What's the public-safety effect of these programs? Though Michigan has the nation's worst economy, crime rates there have fallen faster than the national average, while the state's community corrections programs avoid more than 8,000 incarcerations a year.

A 2008 Pew Public Safety Performance Project report says community corrections programs reduce the likelihood that someone convicted of a crime will commit another serious offense by 10 percent to 20 percent, and even more when a program targets multiple risk factors. Keeping people in the community helps connect them to positive forces and rebuild their lives.

A New Jersey task force on sentencing and corrections, chaired by former state Chief Justice Deborah Poritz (an appointee of a Republican governor), has recommended far broader use of intensive probation, a key community corrections strategy.

According to the Department of Corrections website, the state already has 24 residential community release programs to smooth inmates' transitions back into the community. We just don't have a community corrections system for keeping them out of prison in the first place.

New Jersey's prisons now house some 25,400 inmates. Three in 10 are drug offenders, most of whom are African-Americans who tend to receive long sentences for selling or using illicit drugs. Meanwhile, their affluent white counterparts who illegally abuse prescription drugs are treated leniently or totally ignored by the criminal justice system. Our African-American citizens are well aware of this discrepancy.

The Pew project says that New Jersey incarcerates drug offenders at one of the highest rates in the nation and has one of the nation's worst patterns of racial disparities in imprisonment. What's the public policy justification for this pattern?

Let's change course and revise sentencing laws and practices. Let's place one-fourth of New Jersey's offenders -- only half of those serving time for nonviolent offenses -- in community corrections programs. Conservatively, we would save 40 percent of the cost of an offender's incarceration. This alone will net us taxpayers $99 million a year.

Or we could keep going the way we are, wasting money on unnecessary, largely ineffective, often unjustifiable, and surely no longer affordable incarcerations. The choice, in large part, is up to our new governor.

Neil Weisfeld is a principal of the consulting firm NEW Associates LLC, Princeton.

Israel Outlaws Private Prisons

Israel Outlaws Private Prisons

Israel's Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the mere existence of private prisons in the country is a violation of prisoners' constitutional rights.

In an 8-1 decision, the court overruled a decision passed by the Knesset in 2004 to allow the state to outsource its incarceration to private companies. One company had already built a prison and begun to hire staff when the state issued an injunction against opening in March. The company is expected to sue the state for the cost of building the prison.

The court explained that housing prisoners for profit is inherently a violation of their human rights. The decision brought to a close a case brought by the Academic College of Law in Ramat Gan more than two years ago.

From the Jerusalem Post:

(Supreme Court President Dorit) Beinisch wrote that the incarceration of anyone was a violation of human rights but when it was done by the state, it was done for the public good. When the state allows a private group to incarcerate, the violation of human rights is being perpetrated for profit - both the state's and the private entrepreneur's.

It will be interesting to see what impact Israel's decision to ban private prisons will have on the U.S. and the rest of the world, where the practice of outsourcing incarceration for profit has expanded enormously in recent years. Change.org

Princeton Community Democratic Organization

Princeton Community Democratic Organization

Co-Sponsored with Princeton College Democrats, ABC Prison Literacy and the Petey Greene Prisoner Assistance Program

Sunday, November 22 at7:30pm
Suzanne Patterson Center, One Monument Drive (behind Boro Hall)
Princeton, NJ

Panel moderated by Margaret Quern Atkins, Coordinator of the Criminal Justice Hearings for Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman & Project Manager of the Partnership for Religion and Education in Prisons (PREP) for Drew University. Atkins has worked on prisoner reentry issues for more than a decade. She currently facilitates classes at Northern State Prison in Newark, Arthur Kill Correctional Facility in Staten Island, and Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Clinton New Jersey.

Panelists will include: Sonia Adams, Michael B. Jackson, and Omar Shabbaz.

Jackson has worked in juvenile corrections and parole for over three decades. He is the founder and host of the internet-based PrisonNationRadio.com, is the author of three books, including "How to Do Good After Prison: A Handbook for Successful Reentry."
Shabazz grew up in Newark, has served 20 years in the New Jersey prison system, has worked for the American Friends Committee’s Prisoner Resource Center in Newark, NJ over the last fourteen years. While in prison, he earned an Associate Arts degree, studied law and made a vow to use his prison experience to educate young people about the realities of crime and the prison system.
Biographical information about Adams, who has recently served a sentence at Edna Mahon, will be forthcoming.

New Jersey’s prison population has increased by 400% in less than three decades. We have spent $1.2billion a year on corrections with a 67% re-arrest within 3 years of release, costing $39k per prisoner. The average person in a NJ prison functions at a 6^th grade reading level and a 5^th grade math level; only 2% of the corrections budget is spent on educational programming.

Two resolutions for consideration by the PCDO are shown below which would put the PCDO on record supporting reform at both the national and state levels.Princeton Community Democratic Organization READ MORE:

NJ may consider ‘Re-Entry’ bill for ex-prisoners

NJ may consider ‘Re-Entry’ bill for ex-prisoners TRENTON — Employers would not be allowed to discriminate against ex-con applicants under a local lawmaker’s measure to keep convicts from returning to jail.

Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman has staged a series of “Second Chance” hearings, designed to look at all facets of incarceration. She plans to introduce a six-bill legislative package to meet those goals. read more...

Ex-cons looking for jobs face the stigma of their rap sheets - Nov. 11, 2009

Ex-cons looking for jobs face the stigma of their rap sheets - Nov. 11, 2009

PNR: Why Does New Jersey Hate Formerly Incarcerated People?

Press Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Prison Nation Radio hosted by Michael B. Jackson

Who: Prison Nation Radio – Hosted by Michael B. Jackson

What: Live Internet Talk Radio Broadcast/Community Forum

Topic: “Why Does New Jersey Hate Formerly Incarcerated People?”

Where: www.Jointfx.com <http://www.PrisonNationRadio.com>

When: Thursday, October 29, 2009

Time: 7:30 PM EST

“Why Does New Jersey Hate Formerly Incarcerated People?” On Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 7:30PM Michael B. Jackson will begin a series of broadcasts asking that question. “The NJ Corrections budget is $1.2 billion a year and still 65 percent of the people who get out of prison are back within 3 years,” says Jackson. “The average person in prison reads on a 5^th grade level yet only 2 percent of that $1.2 billion is spent on education programming. NJ ranked 44 out of 50 US states in a national report card for the number of barriers to successful reentry. What’s up with that?”

Jackson will begin the series with the NJ Juvenile Justice Commission (JJC). “The Juvenile justice Commission promotes, tolerates and encourages discrimination and human rights violations against it’s employees with prior convictions or incarceration in their backgrounds, by virtue of it’s policies and failure act against, speak against or even acknowledge, such behavior within the JJC, time and time again”, stated Jackson. “ I will begin the series with my own current personal situation of injustice and workplace hostility as a formerly incarcerated employee.”

PNR will also unveil the historic “Counting the Costs”: Public Safety and Prisoner Reentry Bills, that will be introduced and moved for committee and floor votes during the upcoming “lame duck” session of the NJ legislation. “People who care about improving public safety and reducing the costs of incarceration will be excited about these bills,” says Jackson, with a big smile on his face. “Getting these bills through is something the people can rally behind and get done.” The bills can be seen and downloaded at www.jointfx.com/prisonradio.htm.

Michael B. Jackson, Founder, Executive Producer and Host of Prison Nation Radio says the broadcasts serves a public service by giving incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people and the prison-affected community a voice and point of view rarely offered in traditional media. The weekly talk formatted broadcast includes guest interviews, listener call-in, news/information updates and art & entertainment with special attention to issues important to the Prison Nation audience.

Jackson is also the Publisher and Author of three books; "How to Do Good After Prison: A Handbook for Successful Reentry," "How to Love & Inspire Your Man After Prison," and "Como Cumplir Con Tus Obligaciones Al Salir De La Prision: Guia practica para una vida mejor."

PNR can be accessed on the Internet at www.JOINTFX.com. The mailing address is PMB 104, Postnet, 621 Beverly-Rancocas Rd, Willingboro, NJ 08046. The program call in phone number is 1-347-215-8904.

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For more information Contact: Michael B. Jackson @ mbj@jointfx.com or call 609-877-8071

Brother Ellsworth Bey, Fraternal Order of Ex-Offenders (BMORENEWS.com : News, video and live radio for the black community in...

Brother Ellsworth Bey, Fraternal Order of Ex-Offenders (BMORENEWS.com : News, video and live radio for the black community in...