text:
Child support cases present many challenging issues for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals. If you are currently incarcerated and have a child support order you have the right to petition the court for a downward modification of child support. Through this petition, you are asking the Family Court to lower the amount of child support you are paying. To file a petition for the modification from prison, you can write to the Family Court and request that they send you the forms to fill out. Unfortunately, if you do not file this petition your order will stay the same and the amount you owe (called arrears) will keep growing.
Once you are no longer incarcerated there are very few ways to eliminate or reduce these arrears. If you are released from prison owing a large amount of child support arrears, there are many consequences you can face. Arrears will not go away, even after your child turns 21. Declaring bankruptcy will not get rid of the arrears either. Additional consequences you can face when you owe arrears include: your state or federal tax refund can be taken; money can also be directly removed from your bank account; your driver's license and or professional licenses can be suspended until you have paid the arrears; and if you owe large amounts of money you could be potentially be put in jail for up to six months.
Visitation cases also have unique issues for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals. If you are currently incarcerated and there is a visitation order, the person with custody of your children is supposed to bring them to visit you at your facility. The reality of the situation is that visitation at the facility rarely occurs. If there is no order from the court, your children do not have to be brought to visit. In both of these cases, you have the right to file a petition with the court and to request that the judge order that the person with custody bring your children to visit. The judge will make that decision based on what is in the best interest of your children. And finally if you are currently incarcerated and are a respondent in a neglect case, it is very important for you to keep in contact with your children any way you can. Once again, you can petition the court for visitation to occur at your facility or you also can write letters and try to speak to them on the phone. These actions can help stop a termination of parental rights petition against you.
Whether you are currently incarcerated or have a history of incarceration, the Family Court system can be difficult to navigate. The most important advice I can give you is to be proactive and to be a strong advocate for yourself and your children. You will face many roadblocks along the way— do not give up.]]>
Sex Offenders Sue City, State
The upshot for both New York and the city is that housing sex offenders has become even more complicated. In the past few years, the already limited options for sex offenders have shrunk as more city shelters have been deemed off-limits. About 100 sex offenders who have completed their sentences are being kept in prison, according to a class action lawsuit against the corrections department and the agency that manages city shelters.
Wall Street Journal
Report assails NYC jail's sex abuse response
New York City's Rikers Island jail has entrenched problems dealing with sexual abuse, including emergency hotlines that don't work, confidential complaints read by fellow incarcerated people and investigations that don't interview alleged attackers, according to an internal review obtained by The Associated Press.
Associated Press
Brooklyn Residents Seek Answers After a Mentally Ill Formerly Incarcerated Person Is Fatally Shot
Mr. Lane, 26, who had a lengthy history of mental health problems, had survived a brutal beating at the hands of correction officers at Rikers Island, New York City's main jail complex, in 2012. But he was shot and killed on Wednesday night as he struggled to remake a life that had been difficult from the start.
People in the Brownsville neighborhood where Mr. Lane lived and died could not make sense of his death.
New York Times
First Lady Chirlane McCray hosts shower for incarcerated individual with kids to stress importance of reading, talking for babies' brains
The city's First Lady Chirlane McCray held a baby shower Tuesday morning for incarcerated individuals who are pregnant or have young children.
The soiree, held at the Rose M. Singer Center on Rikers Island, is part of McCray's broader effort to educate expectant mothers about the importance of talking and reading to their young children.
Daily News
Widespread Brutality and Solitary Confinement Followed New York Prison Escape, Report Finds
According to the report, conditions at the already notorious prison got significantly worse after the escape, which embarrassed Clinton staff and the entire prison system. Corrections officers have abused their power by abusing the men in their charge, issuing false disciplinary tickets, and sending men into solitary confinement for minor offenses. Solitary confinement has frequently been used as a coercive tool by these officers to instill fear and wrongly punish people.
Solitary Watch
A Big Victory for Public Defense in New York
All this is set to change after state lawmakers approved a bill last week to transfer all costs back to the state in phases over the next seven years. The measure builds on a 2014 legal settlement to a class-action lawsuit brought against the state by indigent defendants in five upstate counties, where defense services were so bad that defendants regularly spent months behind bars before even speaking to a lawyer.
New York Times
What J. Dennis Hastert, Ex-House Speaker, Will Face in Prison
By policy, the Bureau of Prisons will not address the circumstances of an individual like Mr. Hastert, who is not in custody. But according to a handbook for incarcerated individuals, he will be issued standard clothing, laundry bags and bed linens. He can purchase items like toothpaste, reading glasses and candy from a commissary. The facility includes dormitory-style housing as well as individual cells.
New York Times
Bill covering public defender costs goes to Gov. Cuomo
In Albany County, that's about $4.6 million for public defenders, alternate public defenders and contracting costs, with the state covering about $1.4 million.
A bill that unanimously passed the state Senate on Thursday and was approved by the Assembly could help relieve that burden. The bill now moves to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's desk.
Times Union
Advocates, Providers Keep Pressure on Cuomo Over Housing Funds
While the 2016 legislative session may be finished, the battle over how the state will allocate $1.9 billion in funds earmarked for supportive and affordable housing is not. Neither is the feud between Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, which includes a front over the housing funds.
Gotham Gazette
Legal, health services for the poor get a boost
In a Public Defense reform bill, sponsored by GOP Sen John DeFrancisco and Democratic Assemblywoman Pat Fahy, the cost of providing indigent legal services will, over a seven year period be shifted from counties to the state. This should increase resources when it comes to providing legal help to the indigent and help ease the overly-heavy workload that lawyers for the indigent often labor under — to the detriment of their clients.
Times Union
Supreme Court Says Police May Use Evidence Found After Illegal Stops
The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that evidence found by police officers after illegal stops may be used in court if the officers conducted their searches after learning that the defendants had outstanding arrest warrants.
Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority in the 5-to-3 decision, said such searches do not violate the Fourth Amendment when the warrant is valid and unconnected to the conduct that prompted the stop.
New York Times
Read Sonia Sotomayor's Atomic Bomb of a Dissent Slamming Racial Profiling and Mass Imprisonment
"This case allows the police to stop you on the street, demand your identification, and check it for outstanding traffic warrants—even if you are doing nothing wrong," Sotomayor writes, in a dissent joined in part by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. "If the officer discovers a warrant for a fine you forgot to pay, courts will now excuse his illegal stop and will admit into evidence anything he happens to find by searching you after arresting you on the warrant."
Another Hit to the Fourth Amendment
Responding to Justice Thomas's unsupported claim that the violation of Mr. Strieff's rights was an isolated case, Justice Sotomayor pointed out that the police in Salt Lake City and nationwide routinely run warrant checks on people they have illegally stopped. Combine that practice with the "staggering" number of outstanding warrants — nearly eight million around the country, almost all for minor offenses — and cops have an even greater incentive to stop anyone for any reason, knowing the odds are good that they will find a warrant and be able to make an arrest and conduct a search.
New York Times
Justice Department Reaches Deal With Mississippi County on Prison Reform
The Justice Department announced on Thursday that it had reached an agreement with a Mississippi county that, for the first time, requires a local government to provide an array of options intended to reduce mass incarceration. It includes programs offering alternatives to jail, re-entry services for incarcerated person leaving incarceration and the prohibition of some jail sentences for failure to pay court-ordered fines and fees.
New York Times
Federal Judge Urges U.S. to 'Jettison the Madness of Mass Incarceration'
The speech by Judge Raymond J. Dearie of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn, at an event sponsored by the New York Criminal Bar Association, may not have struck new ground in its critique of the justice system. But it did put him in the company of other federal judges in Brooklyn who in recent months have come forward with scathing appraisals of things such as mandatory sentencing guidelines and the disregard paid to the socioeconomic roots of crime.
New York Times
Piper Kerman: How private prisons hurt everyone
Reducing recidivism benefits all of us—incarcerated people, taxpayers, and the communities most impacted by our dysfunctional criminal justice system. But reducing the number of people we lock up doesn't benefit prison profiteers. As long as there are private businesses financially benefiting from mass incarceration, the roadblocks to critically needed criminal justice reform are formidable. By ending state and federal governments' use of private prisons, we can start to remove the profit motive from the center of our decisions on safety and justice; it has no place there.
A Home After Prison
We must take a hard look at how we treat people who have repaid their debt to society. Many of them return to communities that have been devastated by generations of tough-on-crime policies. We should use public housing policy to help people with convictions succeed, not continue their punishment.
New York Times
The Torment of Solitary Confinement
Incarcerated people in Pelican Bay State Prison's Security Housing Unit (SHU) spend 22.5 hours of the day in a windowless cell—it is one of the most notorious supermax prisons in the United States. In this short documentary, Our Voices Are Rarely Heard, the filmmakers Cali Bondad and Gabrielle Canon recorded their' experiences in the facility. The film aims to provide "a cinematic glimpse of the personal anguish and monotony described by incarcerated people living in long-term isolation," Bondad wrote in an email.
The Atlantic
My four months as a private prison guard
I started applying for jobs in private prisons because I wanted to see the inner workings of an industry that holds 131,000 of the nation's 1.6 million incarcerated people. As a journalist, it's nearly impossible to get an unconstrained look inside our penal system. When prisons do let reporters in, it's usually for carefully managed tours and monitored interviews with incarcerated people. Private prisons are especially secretive.
Mother Jones
At This Library, Story Time Doesn't End Because Dad's Locked Up
But children and incarcerated parents in New York City can still connect and read a book together thanks to TeleStory, a two-year-old program run at a branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. The initiative increases childhood literacy by using free live video conferencing to connect children to incarcerated parents at Rikers Island and borough-based Department of Corrections Jails.
How I Helped Raise My Kids From Prison
For years my three kids, Anthony (19), Jesse (17), and Meranda (13) were just faces on the other side of the glass or voices over the phone. I was able to hug them only a few times during my incarceration. I could only hope that my absence did not put my children at risk of falling down the same path I did.
When Prison Is Not the Answer
I recently spent a week at the Orange County Community Court, which houses multiple specialty courts. The concentration of talent, good will, and grit embodied by the people who work here is impressive. But it's not clear that this resource-heavy, intensely hands-on approach would be easily replicable elsewhere.
The Atlantic
Aging, Sick and Incarcerated: The Need for Compassionate Release
Now 67 years old, Ziman has three cancerous spots on her left lung, requires the use of three inhalers and has only 51 percent lung capacity. She is also blind in one eye and has a cataract in the other. In March 2016, after repeatedly complaining to medical staff at the federal prison in Victorville, California, she was hospitalized for a kidney infection stemming from an untreated urinary tract infection. She spent 10 days in the hospital where tests found that she suffered from anemia, arthritis, a hernia and problematic potassium levels affecting her heart. Additionally, Ziman now requires hip and knee surgery.
Low-Level Arrests Don't Make Us Safer: Report
The NYPD's Inspector General says there is no evidence that increasing arrests and criminal summonses for quality of life offenses helps cut down on felonies — challenging a core tenet of the 'Broken Window'-style of policing Commissioner William Bratton pioneered and continues to support.
"This is not a technique that seems to have any real impact on crime reduction," said Mark Peters, commissioner of the Department of Investigations, who oversees the Inspector General. His agency released a report Wednesday on quality-of-life enforcement and felony crime.
Why Incarcerated Individuals Deserve the Right to Vote
Governor McAuliffe's act is a reminder that public support for giving ex-felons the right to vote after prison is significant, and growing—but this type of order doesn't go far enough. Ex-felons should be able to vote, yes. But so should incarcerated people themselves.
To some, the idea may seem risky, unnecessary or even unconscionable. But in fact, there are good reasons to embrace it. For one, our constitutional ideals support the right of incarcerated people to vote, and denying it violates the concept of self-government that the founders cherished.
Incarcerated people with disabilities lack 'scaffolding for success'
It really happens when young people who have dyslexia or executive function disorder don't get the diagnosis, don't get the accommodations that they need and they deserve in school.
They wind up getting in trouble, getting suspended, dropping out of school. They're not graduating high school and they're getting in trouble very early. So you can really see the problem only — already almost predict the outcome when somebody is in the third grade, if these issues are not addressed.
How a Lawyer Gave Up Corporate Work to Help Exonerees Re-enter Society
Eldan's work can be crucial to his constituents. Incarcerated people paroled or released after completing their sentences may be connected with private or state services — from housing to education — specifically to ease re-entry. But for those exonerated of their crimes, being released often means trying to survive without a support system. This is especially true for the large majority of exonerees whose convictions were overturned without the assistance of an innocence organization and whose cases may not be tracked in any other way.
The Marshall Project
Providing Free Pads And Tampons To Incarcerated Women Is About More Than Hygiene
While jails often supply menstrual products, such as pads and tampons, they are typically poor quality and doled out in limited numbers. If a woman needs more than what's been allocated for her, she might be able to buy products from the commissary — if she can afford it.
Otherwise, it's likely up to guards to decide if they want to provide additional supplies, further reinforcing the unequal power structure and raising the risk of abuses.
The Huffington Post
Building a Different U.S. Prison System
"Obstacles get in people's way, for some of them it's obstacles they create, in others they are created for them," Kenney said, speaking at the Eastern State Penitentiary, which is now a historic landmark open for museum tours. "But it doesn't mean you don't get an opportunity to come back to us as full human beings with full potential. None of us are perfect. We need to give people the ability to redeem themselves, and our communities will be better for it."
Next City
The graduation you haven't attended this year
The road to graduating from college was not an easy one for Stone, who was 28 years old when she was sentenced to two-to-four years at Bedford Hills, New York's only all-women's maximum security prison. Stone had skipped a court appearance and was out on bail when the police raided her apartment for drugs. Her boyfriend at the time died shortly after the raid. And Stone, who was arrested in the incident, found out she was pregnant with his son that morning. The charges against her for that day were dropped, but she was convicted on previous charges for grand larceny, forgery, and bail-jumping.
Man Fined $450 For Stealing $5 Worth Of Food Accuses Court Of Profiting Off Debtors Prison
Scott's crime might have belied the fact that he is not flush with cash. But when he told Judge Robert J. Black he couldn't afford to pay the fine and the court fees, the judge allegedly ignored him. Instead, Black told him he could either pay the court a $50 "extension fee" to buy himself more time to somehow get $450 or go to jail. Since Scott didn't have that sum of money either, he was arrested and booked into the city jail for four hours until a cousin was able to bring $50 to the courthouse and set him free.
Think Progress
Reducing Wasteful Incarcerations
Unfortunately, it is difficult to identify which incarcerated individuals are wrongly incarcerated, and it would take an enormous investment of professional expertise and money to produce that information. However, we could make valuable progress on this issue by offering appropriate incentives for attorneys to identify some of these wasteful incarcerations, thus saving public money and serving the ends of liberty.
The Cato Institute
The number of men behind bars in the US is mind-boggling
Moreover, the number of men incarcerated has increased dramatically over the last 25 years. Data from the US Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that the rate has grown from 564 per 100,000 in 1990 to 890 per 100,000 in 2014. Notably, this spike is correlated with the War on Drugs.
Business Insider
I Made a Rap Video in Prison
I met the guys in the video in my dorm at Kershaw Correctional Institution. We all had similar charges — robberies, manslaughter — so we were all in medium custody, the place where they put the bad kids, the ones who get in trouble a lot. In the dorm, some people play cards or dominoes, or cook. We'd have rap sessions. Someone would bang on the door to create a beat, and we'd take turns freestyling.
The Marshall Project
The Death Penalty Case Where Prosecutors Wrote the Judge's 'Opinion'
When judges make a decision—especially in a death penalty case—we'd like to think they weigh all sides, consider the law and come to a measured, independent conclusion. Not so in Alabama, where a judge's shortcut in the case of Doyle Lee Hamm has shown how often the state makes a mockery of the appeals process.
The Marshall Project
Confessions of an Ex-Prosecutor
My criminal defense colleagues who were never prosecutors themselves often assume that prosecutorial misconduct is rife because prosecution attracts authoritarian personality types. Although it is surely true that some are natural bad actors, my experience showed me that prosecutors are strongly influenced to disregard and minimize rights by the culture that surrounds them. Disciplining or firing miscreants may be necessary, but it's not enough: It doesn't address the root causes of fearful culture and bad incentives.
Solitary Confinement on Television: 'Orange Is the New Black' and Pop Culture's Lockup Landscape
Whatever its flaws, Orange Is the New Black's presentation of solitary confinement to its enormous and critical audience is a step forward. Although viewers should not assume that the show imparts an accurate education on the prison system, presence may lead to pertinence, which allowed Kerman to deliver her testimony. Making the issue present in popular culture and in news media serves to reach people who would not normally be interested.
Solitary Watch
Building stronger American families
If you want someone to succeed when they return as fathers to their families after leaving prison, then they are absolutely going to need a job. Sadly, only a fraction of people in Texas prison get to attend vocational training, and most everyone leaves prison only to find a wall of rejection from employers.
The Monitor
The Joy of Public Defense
Often portrayed and even disturbingly romanticized as serfs in the hierarchical caste-like valuation system that exists within the legal profession (and outside of it), in actuality, public defenders are, minus plush and puffy royal-red robes, golden crowns, and other baubles of majesty, the kings and queens of the law.
Montgomery Advertiser
How people of color are being targeted for traffic violations—and huge fines—in California
Too often, these traffic courts are being used to prop up troubled state and local budgets on the backs of poor minorities who get caught up in the system, the groups contend. Over half of the court and traffic fees collected between 2013 and 2014 went to state coffers, the majority of which went towards operating the courts themselves, and constructing even more courts, says the ACLU in the lawsuit.
Mentally ill incarcerated individuals are swamping the state's prisons and jails. Here's one man's story.
The state mental hospital on California's Central Coast wasn't where Murray wanted to spend the day after his 27th birthday. But it was better than where he had been a month earlier — in a solitary unit in the state prison in Lancaster.
Over the last two years, Los Angeles County officials have announced a new focus on diverting people who are mentally ill from jail and prison. In July 2014, Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey told county supervisors that the jailing of mentally ill defendants was "a moral question."
Los Angeles Times
Man sues for $30 million after serving 13-plus years for murder he didn't commit
Montoya was charged as an adult, convicted and sentenced to life in prison. He spent 13 years, seven months and 13 days behind bars until a judge vacated the conviction in 2014 after new DNA testing exonerated him.
Fisher said it's hard to understand why an innocent person would confess, but points out 44 percent of juveniles exonerated by DNA were coerced into false confessions.
The CW 2
Judge: Sheriff Gusman 'relinquishing operational control' of troubled Orleans jail
Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman is "relinquishing operational control" of the troubled parish jail under an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department that will give broad powers over the facility to a new compliance director, a federal judge announced Tuesday (June 21).
The Times-Picayune
Two Colorado prison guards face criminal charges after "most heinous case of excessive force" at Centennial Correctional Facility
A Colorado Department of Corrections officer and a former colleague face criminal charges and are the targets of a federal civil rights lawsuit in connection with an excessive-force case in which an incarcerated person was lifted by leg shackles and slammed head first onto a floor.
Both men stand accused of falsifying reports about the case and face felony criminal charges. Even so, one of them continues to work at the corrections department, causing a former internal investigator to question why the officer at least isn't on leave pending the criminal charges.
The Denver Post
After losing twin to suicide at OPP, woman 'more hopeful than ever' for jail reforms
Michelle Perdomo slid into a seat on a courthouse bench next to a woman she'd never met. Still, Perdomo said, she knew they shared the same pain.
Both Perdomo and Ranee Tumblin, the woman Perdomo sat beside at a recent federal court hearing, lost their brothers to suicide while the men were in custody of the Orleans Parish jail. Both sisters were present in U.S. District Judge Lance Africk's courtroom in recent weeks to listen to testimony about conditions at the jail.
The Times-Picayune
Gov. Matt Bevin creates council to reform criminal justice system
The council is expected to study the state's criminal code — enacted in 1974 — and suggest improvements for the 2017 General Assembly to consider this winter. Council members said they plan to focus on every aspect of how the state punishes people and how it treats them once they are released from incarceration.
Lexington Herald-Leader
$10 and a bus ticket: Stop setting up formerly incarcerated individuals to fail
While researching a graduate school thesis on the issue of re-entry, I had the opportunity to interview former incarcerated people in the Illinois prison system on the daunting challenges they faced upon their return to society. It started with the cruelly simple release process: They were given $10 in cash and a one-way bus ticket to Chicago. Once off the bus, what followed for most was a frustrating search for work, places to live and any sense of normalcy in some of the city's toughest neighborhoods.
Crain's Chicago Business
4 years after incarcerated person's brutal death, no punishment
Since Rainey's death, it was discovered that he and other mentally ill incarcerated people at the prison had been tortured, beaten, starved and left to sleep in their own excrement. They were doused with buckets of chemicals, over-medicated, kept in extended isolation and placed in painfully cold or blistering showers as punishment for behavior caused mostly by their own illnesses.
Miami Herald
Prison program helps formerly incarcerated people become better fathers from behind bars
As Cole Williams worked with youths at the Kent County Juvenile Detention Center, he asked 24 boys how many of them had a father who was locked up and absent at some point in their lives.
Seventeen of them raised their hands.
M Live
Trading Weapons for Salamanders
At the start of her more than 30-year career with the National Park Service, Robin White, transported, among others, teen members of the Latin Kings, Black Gangster Disciples and other gang members from violent, isolated and insular Chicago neighborhoods to the Indiana Dunes National Lake Shore.
There, on Lake Michigan— an hour's drive from the Windy City— park ranger White, using nature as a tool, aimed to help those young people rein in their destructive impulses and make sense of the family and community dysfunctions that often fuel those impulses.
The Crime Report]]>
Addressing the Housing Needs of Youth and Young Adults in Contact with the Justice System
Youth with criminal justice contact face several barriers to securing safe and affordable housing. In this Webinar, learn about current data on youth homelessness, how homelessness overlaps with the criminal justice system, and solutions for connecting justice involved youth with the housing they need.
Thursday, June 30, 2016 2:00 pm
Click here for more information.]]>
For the first forty years of my life, I kept my sexual orientation a secret. I feared what others would think if they knew I was gay. The homophobic environment I lived in fostered these fears and forced most of the gay and lesbian community into silence. Growing up, my family never discussed homosexuality. In high school, classmates would make derisive comments. The media also fueled anti-gay sentiments within society. When I was living in Manhattan, the brutal murder of my gay neighbor received almost no media coverage. When there was coverage of the gay community, it was frequently homophobic in nature. Gays and lesbians were an invisible population that society deemed unimportant, causing their basic human rights to be ignored.
I also witnessed homophobia while working to establish The Fortune Society. In 1968, some of Fortune's early members appeared on The David Susskind Show to discuss their prison experiences. The first person who volunteered to be on the show was one of Fortune's most important pioneers, Pat McGarry. He was not allowed on the show, however, because he was openly gay.
In 1973, six years after I founded Fortune, I decided that I was ready to come out. There were three factors that propelled me to make this decision.
The first factor was the formation of the National Gay Task Force (now called the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force) in 1973 as a platform for organizing LGBTQI activism. This was one of the first grassroots organizations that united the gay community at the time and remains America's oldest national LGBTQI advocacy group.
The task force was recruiting board members from different professional fields and they had difficulty finding someone from the criminal justice field. Because I had the experience, they reached out and asked if I wanted to become a board member. In order to join, however, I needed to disclose my sexuality— remaining closeted would defeat the purpose of the task force's mission.
The second factor was that, at the age of 39, I entered my first serious relationship with another man named Greg Norris. Greg was a teacher who had an incarcerated father and we became acquainted with each other while rallying for the rights of incarcerated people. Prior to this, I had never been in a relationship with a man because doing so would have revealed my sexuality to others around me.
Finally, the biggest factor that propelled me to open up was the lessons I had learned during my first six years at Fortune. By listening to the stories of the formerly incarcerated individuals whom I worked with and served, I acquired a vast amount of knowledge about people who were oppressed and ostracized because of their criminal records. However, because I was so intent on keeping my sexuality private, I did not realize that I was experiencing similar oppression as a closeted gay man.
Some of the people I worked with at Fortune lied about their criminal records and past mistakes in order to keep their jobs and homes. I had also lied about my sexuality to others out of similar fears. I admired the people I worked with at Fortune, who lived bold lives despite the stigmas they faced because of their criminal records. I was inspired to take the initiative to be bold about my own life.
If I was going to come out, however, I did not want people to spread harmful rumors about my sexuality beforehand. My prominent role in criminal justice reform and founding Fortune had earned me significant publicity. Thus, I needed to orchestrate my coming out in a positive way that showed I was proud and unafraid to do so.
With this goal in mind, I called Jean Kennedy, the producer of The David Susskind Show. I asked whether she had ever hosted individuals who were not only gay, but also in the American mainstream and leading duplicitous lives. She responded that they hadn't and I suggested that I appear on the show. After finding others who were in similar situations, she agreed to feature me along with two other men and three women.
Before I proceeded, there was one problem that I needed to address: Would the future success at Fortune be compromised if the public found out that its founder and Executive Director was gay? Would people stop supporting Fortune once I came out? I decided that I did not want to put Fortune at risk because its mission and impact were too important to me, its hardworking staff, and the community.
With the intention of resigning, I gathered Kenny Jackson, Mel Rivers, Fran O'Leary, Bobby Davis, Jeanette Spencer, and all the other formerly incarcerated people working at Fortune's small office in Manhattan. I informed them that I was gay, that I was going to open up about my sexuality on Susskind, and therefore I would be resigning as Executive Director of Fortune.
Kenny responded, "Well, what are you going to wear on TV?"
I was shocked by this response.
When I expressed my concern that people would stop supporting Fortune once they knew I was gay, Mel said, "You stood by us for six years telling us to be honest about our lives. Give us the opportunity to stand by you."
After a long pause, Kenny asked, "Can we all get back to work now?"
To this day, Mel's remark remains etched in my mind. This meeting was one of the most emotional moments of my life because I realized that I did not have to walk away from Fortune. Kenny and Mel accepted me for who I was.
I also opened up about my sexuality to my mother, who had never known. I wrote a letter to her, which was later published in a compilation of letters called Letters to a Nation. In this letter, I explained that I learned to become content with my sexuality and that "I am a total human being with much to be proud of, much which I can offer, and my personal sexual orientation is a problem only if I permit it to be and if I am obsessed with the rejection of an unknowing outside world." My mother cried when she read the letter, which was the first entirely honest correspondence I had with her.
Immediately following the episode, I felt cautious yet liberated because I was no longer living a lie. Despite the homophobic environment of the time, the response to my coming out on Susskind was overwhelmingly positive and I received an immense amount of support from the public.
The next day, I received hundreds of letters and phone calls at Fortune's office from people around the country who said that they loved and supported me. Jeanette Spencer, a formerly incarcerated woman at Fortune, saw that I was overwhelmed by this response. She then told me, "Sometimes it's easier to get rejection than a bundle of love all at once. It's very tough that you spent all your life being ashamed of something and then finding out that people love you in spite of it."
My coming out on Susskind also inspired others to do the same. When I returned to Fortune after I appeared on Susskind, I went to the 23rd street YMCA to play basketball during my lunch break, as I usually did. As I walked onto the court, apprehensive about what the men would say, a tall Brazilian man who was the most talented basketball player among us put his arm around me. He said, "You made it easier for all of us." He then announced that he was gay to everyone on the court. I was stunned as I realized that my coming out set a precedent for other gay individuals who were closeted.
I was soon invited to speak at universities and to join political groups and gay organizations. Community leaders asked me to be a marshal and spokesperson for the gay community at a demonstration that occurred in Times Square in response to the battering of a gay man. Additionally, I advocated for the city council's gay rights bill, which passed in 1986.
I also became a founding member of the NGTF and was appointed to the New York City Commission on Human Rights. The commission, which was responsible for enforcing human rights laws, was formed on the notion that no person should be judged based on factors that were extraneous to who they were, such as race, religion, or who they loved. The minority groups whom the commission advocated for had all been oppressed and marginalized because of preconceived notions, and we aimed to reverse this.
Additionally, I was part of a group of openly gay executive directors who would meet to discuss issues they faced in operating gay rights organizations. During our meetings, we discovered that we all knew people who had contracted AIDS. Unfortunately, as the number of diagnoses rose, so did anti-gay sentiment. A lack of accurate media coverage and systemic homophobia prolonged the amount of time it took for researchers and the public to understand that AIDS was not limited to the gay population.
We realized that despite the scope and seriousness of the disease, it was not receiving enough political attention. However, we knew that the gay community would have little political input on the AIDS crisis without someone in government to prioritize it on the city's political agenda. As we discussed the criteria for our ideal candidate, it became clear that I fit the position.
Motivated by the rising death tolls and my visits to AIDS-inflicted individuals, I became the first openly gay man to run for New York city council in 1985.
I ran for the district covering Greenwich Village, Chelsea, and a small portion of the East Side.
During my campaign, I received extensive media coverage specifically because I was running as an openly gay man. The Daily News ran a front page story about me and both The New York Times and New York Magazine featured my campaign despite the fact that they rarely covered city council races. I also had over 250 volunteers helping me campaign from a storefront in Greenwich Village.
At the end of the race, I received the third largest number of votes of any candidate in the 38 council races. Though I did not win, my campaign made important strides for the LGBTQI community and I was proud to have a supportive constituency of formerly incarcerated individuals who had reclaimed their lives.
While both formerly incarcerated individuals and members of the LGBTQI community differ in their backgrounds and experiences, they face the same burden of oppression. Society has placed unfair labels on both groups of people, causing the importance of their needs and rights to be diminished. These labels have caused them to be ignored in the face of injustice. Hearing the stories of formerly incarcerated individuals allowed me to recognize this intersection and for years, I have advocated for the rights of both groups.
The LGBTQI movement has made substantial progress in overcoming the stigma against homosexuality during the past few decades. Yet discrimination and outright violence against the gay community still occur today and LGBTQI individuals continue to face oppression because of who they love. All oppressed peoples, whether it is the LGBTQI community or people with criminal records, do not deserve to live with the ostracization that society subjects them to.
With almost 50 years of experience in helping the marginalized formerly incarcerated population reenter communities, Fortune stands with the LGBTQI community in light of the violence and discrimination they face. Just as Fortune embraces all individuals without judgment and values their success, we hope that society will soon accept both LGBTQI people and people affected by the justice system for who they are and place equal importance on their lives.]]>
Behind bars and owing thousands in child support
In addition to the myriad other fees and fines inmates can incur, owing child support debt is one of the many ways that being incarcerated can be a financial nightmare. Many inmates are not aware that child support payments can accrue while they are behind bars. In fact, those who enter the system with child support debt could come out owing several times the amount they owed going in, either because the unpaid child support adds up or because of court mandated interest.
CNN Money
Rikers Island inmate who felt humiliated after being forced to urinate in bottle tried to kill himself twice
Humiliated after a leg injury and forced to relieve himself in a bottle because jail staff did not move him to a Rikers Island's medical unit, a mentally ill inmate has tried to kill himself twice this month, according to the man and medical records.
Jose Gonzalez, 29, hurt his leg after he slipped on water from a leaky light fixture in a jailhouse bathroom May 19, records show. "They sent me to urgent care on a stretcher and then asked me to go on crutches," he told the Daily News during a jailhouse interview.
Daily News
NYC correction officer attacked by inmate who was supposed to be in solitary confinement for assaulting the same staffer
A city inmate who was supposed to be in solitary confinement after attacking a correction officer ambushed that same jail staffer again just four days later, breaking his nose.
The bungled bureaucracy that allowed inmate Sentwali Laviscount, 32, to remain in the general population in the Manhattan Detention Complex has infuriated jail staff.
Daily News
Correction officers tasked with teaching unarmed Homeless Service Department officers
The unarmed peace officers who patrol city shelters are going to get beefed-up training — from the correction officers who patrol city jails.
As many as 250 Homeless Services Department officers and an additional 100 supervisors are lined up to attend a four-week training class at the NYPD academy, sources told the Daily News on Wednesday.
Daily News
Allegedly Corrupt Prison Union Boss Replaced By Trusted Crony
After being arrested earlier this week on corruption charges, Norman Seabrook has been ousted from his position as president of the Correction Officers' Benevolent Association and replaced by his second in command, who's been described as a faithful sidekick of Seabrook's who the former chief consulted before making his allegedly corrupt investments.
Correction Union's Chief to Members: 'Your Money is Safe'
The new leader of the New York City correction officers' union sought to reassure members about the group's finances, several days after a hedge-fund firm said it would close a fund in which the union invested.
"I want to assure you that your money is safe," Correction Officers' Benevolent Association President Elias Husamudeen wrote in bold and capital letters in a three-page letter mailed to union members this week and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The union's finances and annuity fund are healthy, he wrote.
Wall Street Journal
NY lawmakers want parole appeal decisions posted online
Sponsors say the state's Board of Parole exercises "extraordinary discretion" and should post its administrative appeal decisions so the public and concerned citizens have access to the body of decisions that inform its practice.
Associated Press
Schools Move Away From Suspensions for Student Misbehavior
New York City, seeking a shift from such stringent penalties, plans to spend $47 million in the next academic year to improve the school climate. That includes about $7 million for restorative practices, such as training department staffers to spread the techniques, and adding "school culture coordinators" at 20 sites with high suspension rates.
Wall Street Journal
The other side of justice
Plenty of hard-line, law and order bills make it through the GOP-controlled Senate each year. Though whether making crimes even more criminal – such as increasing fines and prison terms already on the books – actually deters criminals is debatable, it does play well with many voters. Unfortunately, other significant legislation that would truly improve our criminal justice system has yet to make it to the Senate floor for a vote.
Times Union
The New York Jail Break That Exposed a Broken System
The New York State corrections system was ridiculed last June when two employees at a maximum-security prison were arrested for smuggling in tools — including hacksaw blades — that helped two convicted murderers escape. The two employees went to jail. But a troubling report from the state inspector general, Catherine Leahy Scott, shows that malfeasance and security lapses were the order of the day at the Clinton Correctional Facility when the two men escaped.
New York Times
Suffolk Sheriff Launches 'Re-Entry Initiative' For Incarcerated Veterans
The Incarcerated Veterans Re-Entry Initiative will create a special housing unit for veterans within Suffolk County's correctional facilities.
"What we're doing now is we're taking veterans and housing them in the same housing area. They're still going to be held accountable for their crimes, but while they're here, we're going to provide services for them. So when they do get released, they get a second chance."
White House Asks Colleges to Reconsider Weighing Criminal History in Applications
The Obama administration on Friday will announce a program encouraging U.S. colleges and universities to reconsider weighing applicants' criminal pasts in the admissions process.
The move comes after widespread calls for schools to end the practice, because of concern that candidates for higher education are turned away for minor offenses, often committed as juveniles, despite whether they may have since been rehabilitated.
Wall Street Journal
Ban the Other Box
More than 3 million students are either suspended or expelled from schools each year and when they are, a discipline record is generated. While the barriers created by criminal records have begun to receive much-needed attention, the barriers created by school discipline records have been largely overlooked. The Department of Education report that accompanies King's letter mentions school records only in passing, without taking a firm position. Like criminal records, school discipline records can, and do, jeopardize young people's chances to succeed. Like criminal records, school records are a scarlet letter.
The Marshall Project
Federal Officials Ignored Years of Internal Warnings About Deaths at Private Prisons
The records and interviews with former BOP officials reveal a pattern: Despite dire reports from dozens of field monitors, top bureau officials repeatedly failed to enforce the correction of dangerous deficiencies and routinely extended contracts for prisons that failed to provide adequate medical care.
The Nation
Congressional criminal justice push falters, despite budget gains
In a year of tight budgets and bitter partisanship, Congress appears ready to turn down a chance to save hundreds of millions of dollars through criminal justice reform legislation that has broad bipartisan support.
The reform effort, which aims to shorten mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and ease the path of former felons back into the workforce, was expected to be one of the few major pieces of legislation to become law this year. But GOP aides in the House and Senate have been growing increasingly bearish over the past month.
The Least Congress Can Do on Criminal Justice Reform
Unanimity is lacking today because of a number of factors. A couple of vocal but mistaken members of Congress insist that any drug sentencing reform will endanger the public, an election-year fearmongering tactic that has no basis in fact. There is also strong disagreement about whether to include minimum criminal intent requirements ("mens rea") in any final reform bill. House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) support broad mens rea protection; the White House and most Democrats strongly oppose it.
Huffington Post
President Obama's Clemency Project is a Bureaucratic Nightmare
With an undertaking this large, and a bureaucratic structure this vast, the system has struggled to process applications in a timely manner. A Politico investigation published in January 2015 found that the clemency initiative "languished during its first year due to a flood of applications, inadequate resources, reliance on a group of outside lawyers to prepare prisoners' paperwork, and a series of bureaucratic hurdles that weren't anticipated."
We Need Sentencing Reform And This Bill Is A Good Start
The Federal Sentencing Act is not perfect. No legislation is. But it represents a good-faith, bipartisan effort to improve our prisons and courts, making the former more efficient and the latter more fair. It is broadly in line with state-level reforms that have already yielded considerable success. The proposed measures are also modest, making it exceedingly unlikely this law will precipitate a crime wave. It is a well-conceived and responsible piece of legislation.
The Federalist
Federal Prisoner Who Blogged For HuffPost Has No First Amendment Rights, Court Rules
A blogger who wrote for The Huffington Post while serving a federal prison sentence didn't have a First Amendment right to publish an article critical of prison conditions, an appeals court has ruled.
Daniel McGowan, an environmental activist whose prosecution for "eco terrorism" was the subject of an award-winning film, was finishing his seven-year term at a Brooklyn halfway house when he wrote a HuffPost blog post that contained details about a secretive prison where he had spent years in isolation.
Huffington Post
Home Free
But Hamilton was growing increasingly despondent about his indefinite confinement in I.P.C. On November 2nd, he wrote a letter to the prison's superintendent. "The only way out of the torture you have subjected me to is suicide," he said. "Death will be a welcomed companion compared to what you've subjected me to the last seven and a half months."
The New Yorker
Is It a Crime to Be Poor?
Tears welled in her eyes as she told how she was trying to turn her life around, no longer stealing, and steering clear of drugs for the last two years — but her fines and fees keep increasing and now total $11,258. With depression and bipolar disorder, she has little hope of getting a regular job, so she is periodically arrested for failing to pay.
New York Times
The US Robbed Itself of $87 Billion in 2014 By Not Hiring Formerly Incarcerated People
Policies allowing employers to unfairly weed out applicants who answer "yes" to the incarceration question amounted to a loss of about 1.9 million potentially qualified workers, according to the CEPR report. It reduced the overall employment rate by an entire percentage point.
Welcome to Jail Inc: how private companies make money off US prisons
"We have these suicide blankets," he said, pointing them out on his display stand. "[They are] for people that can't be trusted with their own clothes in case they might make a noose and hang themselves."
The most expensive items are full-restraint beds costing $3,000, and the most popular items are "spit bud" masks that prevent inmates from spitting at guards. "If you take someone's ability to strike out, you have that for spitting them, all they have is to talk dirty about your mother," Schultz said.
The Guardian
Poor on a Native American Reservation? Good Luck Getting a Lawyer.
In rural parts of this country, accessing legal services of any kind is increasingly difficult. If you are poor, it is nearly impossible. Our national discourse on criminal justice reform focuses primarily on major urban centers, where vivid socio-economic disparities like those found between Park Avenue in Manhattan and Park Avenue in the Bronx make the conversation about change obvious and pressing. But justice in less populous spaces, and Indian Country in particular, too often is treated as an afterthought.
The Marshall Project
SCOTUS decision exposes unequal justice for Native Americans
On June 13, 2016, the United States Supreme Court unanimously held in United States v. Bryant that the use of prior convictions from tribal courts as predicate offenses in federal courts does not violate the Constitution even when those prior tribal court convictions were obtained against an uncounselled indigent defendant and resulted in jail time. In plain English, this means that an indigent defendant can be denied a lawyer in a tribal court and sentenced to up to one year incarceration, and that uncounselled conviction can then be used to make the defendant eligible for more punitive sentencing in the federal courts.
Sixth Amendment Center
Fathers In Prison
The worst moment of my life occurred about an hour after I told my young daughters that I was going to have to go to prison. As soon as they realized I wasn't joking and that I would be leaving in a matter of weeks, the tears began and the three of us clung to one another in a teepee of complete misery. It was excruciating. I remember looking up at one point and thinking, "Is taking me away from these kids for 20 months the only way society can get its pound of flesh?"
The Daily Caller
Court Fines And Fees Almost Delay Homecoming For Wrongly Convicted Michigan Man
Davontae Sanford was only 14 years old when he was arrested for a string of murders in Michigan. But after almost nine years in prison, his conviction was overturned when a state investigation found that the real killer had later confessed to Wayne County police and prosecutors.
Now 23, Sanford was reunited with his family last week in Detroit. But that tearful homecoming almost didn't happen, because of more than $2,000 in unpaid court fines and fees he amassed while in prison — including a bill for a public defender.
"Cruel and unjust": The war on drugs snares immigrant for pot, breaking a Virginia family in two
In September 2011, Melissa Lawrence was seven-and-a-half months pregnant and working as a waitress when she got the call. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had detained her partner, Garfield Kenault Lawrence. That he had arrived at age 11 and was a lawful permanent resident didn't matter because Kenault had been convicted of small-time marijuana offenses. In January 2013, he was deported to Jamaica after more than a year in detention.
So You Think a New Prison Will Save Your Town?
The rural prison building boom that began in the 1980s roughly coincided with the farm crisis. Rural communities that once might have opposed putting a prison in their backyards became more receptive, hoping it would bring a new employment base and possibly new prosperity.
Despite claims from the bureau and other prison boosters, research suggests that prisons rarely bring significant economic improvements to rural communities where they are pitched as a salvation. Here's what the studies show.
The Marshall Project
The Private Prison Primer: Inmate 2*3*9*'s shoes and the Kingman riots, Part 1
Public and private prisons across America receive thousands and thousands of grievances, formal and informal, each year. And it's only once all administrative grievance procedures have finally been exhausted that an inmate can take a case to court, a measure implemented in the mid-nineties via the Prison Litigation Reform Act, effectively meant to keep their complaints getting too much play.
Twenty Years Ago the Supreme Court Effectively Legalized Racial Profiling
Twenty years ago today, the Supreme Court effectively legalized racial profiling of drivers by police in Whren v. United States. Like so much of the Court's criminal justice jurisprudence, the Court didn't mean to do it. Indeed, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the opinion that the Court would have sided with the plaintiff had he brought an Equal Protection challenge (under the Fourteenth Amendment) and proved the officers pulled them over because they were black. But the plaintiffs were arguing the search that came from a pretextual stop of the vehicle violated the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable search and seizure. And Whren lost…unanimously.
Cato Institute
For 50 Years, You've Had "The Right to Remain Silent"
If you've ever watched any of the tens of thousands of hours of television devoted to crime dramas, you know the first warning given to suspects who are arrested and questioned. And the second: "Anything you say can and will be used against you." The Miranda warnings—named for Miranda v. Arizona, the 1966 Supreme Court decision that required them—celebrate their 50th anniversary on June 13. In that period, they have become so ubiquitous that it's easy to forget their origin and purpose.
The Marshall Project
"It's Absolutely Stupid." Fifth Trial Planned In Bite-Mark Murder Case
Just weeks after a unanimous California Supreme Court threw out Bill Richards's murder conviction, prosecutors in San Bernardino County have indicated that they will seek a fifth trial for the 66-year-old. "It's absolutely stupid," said Richards's longtime defender Jan Stiglitz, a founder of the California Innocence Project, which has represented Richards since 2001.
The Intercept
Opinion analysis: No constitutional violation from use of tribal-court convictions as predicate offenses
But the Sixth Amendment does not apply to tribal-court proceedings. Instead, a 1968 law that governs tribal-court proceedings only requires a lawyer to be appointed for criminal defendants who are sentenced to more than a year in prison. And, the Court explained today, if Bryant's tribal-court convictions were valid when they were entered, they are equally valid when used as the basis for federal charges, even if he was not represented by an attorney in those tribal-court proceedings.
SCOTUS Blog
N.C. prisons to end solitary confinement for youthful offenders
The N.C. prison system is ending the use of solitary confinement for offenders under 18 years old, it announced today.
Instead, the N.C. Division of Adult Correction and Juvenile Justice is starting a Youthful Offender Program on Sept. 1.
Mother and child disunion
"Incarcerated mothers are a heterogeneous group," Wakefield said, representing both "large groups of women who are good parents but who are struggling with mental illness, substance abuse or poverty, and then also a group of women who arguably are not safe with their children." It follows, she said, that while having a mother incarcerated is likely to be inherently more destabilizing for a child, whether it's better or worse for the child to then be placed outside the home depends on the situation.
Arkansas Times
A tale of two states: Wisconsin trails Colorado as both cut solitary confinement
"The problem with this cell, there's nothing to count," Raemisch says, noting the smooth walls. "There's no chips. There's no scrapes. There's no dents. You got nothing to count in here."
The reason this cell at Centennial South remains relatively unmarked is that, except for about two years from 2010 to 2012, it has not been used. Colorado's rapid shift away from solitary confinement — from 1,500 prisoners in 2011 down to 185 as of May — has left the state with a $200 million empty all-solitary prison in Cañon City.
In a Virginia jail, a young man wasted away and died — and no one bothered to notice
A mentally ill black man, just 24 years old, is arrested in April 2015 for shoplifting a Mountain Dew, a Snickers bar and a Zebra Cake — total cost: $5 — from a convenience store in Virginia. He languishes in jail for 14 weeks, refusing medicine, his weight plummeting, his cell smeared with feces. After 101 days, having lost more than 40 pounds — literally wasting away, as a starving man does — he dies.
And no one noticed a thing, until it was too late.
Washington Post
Cases expected to clog Louisiana courts, and cost millions, after state fails to address unconstitutional life sentences
About 300 Louisiana inmates spending their lives in prison for murders committed as teens are turning to the courts after the Legislature failed to address their sentences, which were declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in January.
A bill that would've given the inmates a shot at parole after serving at least 30 years died at the end of the regular Legislative session Monday amid eleventh-hour negotiations and an unrelated spat between the state House and Senate.
The Advocate
U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether to review Angola prison inmate's death sentence
The high court is expected to decide this week whether to hear the case of David Brown, the "Angola 5" member who was accused of plotting to kill a prison guard in 1999. His death sentence was endorsed in February by the Louisiana Supreme Court after a district judge had overturned it.
Brown's attorneys, in their petition for a U.S. Supreme Court hearing, say the facts of the case are alarmingly similar to Brady v. Maryland, the landmark 1963 ruling that required prosecutors to turn over to the defense all evidence favorable to a defendant.
The New Orleans Advocate
Racial disparity in N.J. prison rates highest in U.S., report finds
New Jersey has the biggest gap between black and white incarceration rates of any state in the U.S., according to a new report from the Washington, D.C.-based Sentencing Project.
The Garden State puts black residents behind bars at 12 times the rate of white residents, the report found, though it noted that gap is expected to shrink thanks to recent changes to New Jersey's sentencing laws.
Messenger: Death at county jail has mom, minister, asking tough questions
It's been more than a month now since Buck's son died in the County Jail. He was laid to rest May 12. Still, his mother doesn't know anything about how or why his life ended.
Attorney Jerryl Christmas said that's not unusual.
"People in poverty are always treated differently," Christmas said.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Orange County DA's Office Finally Acknowledges Jailhouse Informant Program Exists
Of course, the existence of the informant program should come as no surprise. Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders has been arguing since 2013 that a tainted snitch network in county jails has existed in secret for decades. In a series of blockbuster motions, the defense attorney unearthed damning evidence that clearly pointed to the program's existence, alleging that county prosecutors and police have violated multiple defendants' rights by illegally obtaining and sometimes withholding evidence gleaned from jail informants.
Huffington Post
For 'stunning' amount spent to avoid cooling death row, Louisiana could have installed air conditioning
The state of Louisiana's refusal to install air conditioning on death row has already cost taxpayers more than $1 million in legal bills, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.
The state could spend roughly the same money — and possibly much less — on an air conditioning system that would satisfy a federal judge's order to protect death-row inmates from dangerous heat and humidity inside Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.
The Advocate
He warned Indiana prison officials he would kill a cellmate. And then he did.
He told Indiana prison officials over and over that if he were placed in a cell with another person, he would be violent. He had a history of assaulting other inmates, crafting makeshift weapons and threatening prison staff. In 2004, he threatened to kill a Steuben County judge by slicing his throat "with a dull knife." He later mailed two federal judges packets of white powder and razor blades.
South Bend Tribune
MDOC closing private Walnut Grove prison
The closing of the prison is just one in a series of programs that have been terminated under Fisher's administration within the last year and a half. Fifteen regional jails have had their populations minimized to "contractual obligations. Four community work centers have closed, and the paid Joint State County Work Program has ended.
The Clarion-Ledger
Walnut Grove mayor: Prison closure could cripple MS town
Gomillion said he would like to talk with state leaders about MDOC using Walnut Grove as a state-run facility, or even potentially contracting to house inmates from other states. He said he believes legislation allows the authority that runs the prison to contract only for state or federal inmates, "but surely that could be changed with legislation to keep 200 jobs and a facility from being mothballed."
The Clarion-Ledger
The Prison-to-Food Truck Pipeline: How Two Organizations Are Dishing Up Jobs for At-Risk Youth
At first glance, Lexton's classroom could be in any other school in America. With their books and folders, students sat at rows of about 20 desks facing a scuffed-up whiteboard. But this classroom existed in the shadows of the New York City skyline, encapsulated by razor wire and security guards. Lexton was tasked with teaching teenagers who were in lock-up on the infamous Rikers Island, one of America's most iconic jails.
The 74]]>
Share Your Positive Fatherhood Images
Take part in The Campaign for Black Male Achievement's monthly membership call, which will feature photographer Zun Lee and Fathers Incorporated Executive Director Kenneth Braswell, who are starting a special photo mini-series to celebrate Black fatherhood and family life. The call will also feature Roosevelt Institute Fellow and MSNBC Commentator Dorian Warren, who will talk about a newly-released white paper that he co-authored, titled "Rewriting the Racial Rules: Building an Inclusive American Economy."
Thursday, June 23rd from 1 pm -2 pm
RSVP by emailing email@example.com. The number to dial-in is (917) 962-0650 and enter the six-digit conference code 693884.
June 30
Addressing the Housing Needs of Youth and Young Adults in Contact with the Justice System
Youth with criminal justice contact face several barriers to securing safe and affordable housing. In this Webinar, learn about current data on youth homelessness, how homelessness overlaps with the criminal justice system, and solutions for connecting justice involved youth with the housing they need.
Thursday, June 30, 2016 2:00 pm
Click here for more information.]]>
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2007, America's prisons held about 744,200 fathers. On Father's Day, children of these incarcerated fathers will have to travel long distances to visit and will experience the sorrow of seeing their fathers in prison rather than at home. Others will not be able to visit their fathers at all on this special day.
These fathers may feel ashamed, frustrated, and saddened as they remember that they cannot support their children and be present for them. Father's Day reminds incarcerated fathers that their time behind bars could have been spent taking care of their children and bonding with their families. They realize that their children are growing up without them and may feel as if they have failed to carry out the duties of fatherhood.
Incarcerating fathers can lead to significant emotional trauma for families and leave damaging effects on society. Often, there is a large physical distance separating children and the jails and prisons that their fathers reside in. This limits opportunities for visitation, and as a result, some children will never meet their fathers and will grow up without their guidance. Other forms of communication, such as phone calls and writing letters, can be expensive for low-income families. This discourages children from reaching out to and connecting with their fathers.
More than one-third of minor children will reach the age 18 while their parent is incarcerated (Bureau of Justice Statistics). Growing up without a father can affect crucial aspects of children's development during this time and affect them into adulthood. When children have an incarcerated parent they are six times more likely to end up in the criminal justice system themselves (U.S. Department of Justice). This sets in motion cycles of recidivism that are difficult to break.
In addition, recent studies have shown that children with fathers in prison have greater chances of growing up in poverty and experiencing financial instability (Geller et al. 2009; Phillips et al. 2006). According to the National Academy of Sciences, "fathers' incarceration and family hardship, including housing insecurity and behavioral problems in children, are strongly related."
Unfortunately, many fathers are serving long prison sentences for nonviolent offenses such as charges relating to narcotics. In fact, incarcerated individuals who have committed drug and public-order offenses in state and federal prisons were more likely to have children than those who committed violent offenses (Bureau of Justice Statistics).
Decreasing prison sentences for low-level offenses such as possession of a controlled substance and replacing them with community-based sentencing options is one way to address the mass incarceration of fathers. There is no need for fathers to be separated from their children for long periods of time when research consistently shows the harmful effects incarceration has on individuals, families and communities. It is also unfair to children, who must pay a steep price and sacrifice their development.
There must also be more programs dedicated to helping formerly incarcerated fathers reintegrate back into their communities and learn parenting skills. The Fortune Society's Family Services unit has successfully provided such services. For years, we have helped justice involved fathers access the resources and knowledge they need to become caring parents and role models for their children.
Our most recent issue of the Fortune News focuses on the issues that justice involved families face and celebrates the success of our Family Services unit in healing relationships and reuniting children with their parents. This issue of the Fortune News also highlights the impact of mass incarceration on our clients who were fathers.
One story in the Fortune News features Denzel Menter, a former client who was able to mend his relationship with his young daughter and her mother through Family Services. Before coming to Fortune, Denzel had difficulty communicating with Selena's mother, who did not want him to visit Selena. Because of Fortune, Denzel acquired the skills he needed to become a caring parent and to communicate with Selena's mother respectfully. He wrote, I was ready to give up, but thankfully, Fortune's staff gave me hope and emphasized how important it was for Selena to have a father in her life.
As a result, he now sees his daughter almost every weekend and has become a positive presence for her. Family Services both allowed Denzel to experience the joys of fatherhood and enabled Selena to lead a more complete life with the support of her father.
In another piece, our Vice President of Programs, Peggy Arroyo, explained why it is crucial for children to see their incarcerated fathers using her first-hand experiences. She also described the creation of Fortune's first fathers program called "The Right Step," which was established with the direct involvement of our own clients who were fathers. Through this program, formerly incarcerated fathers were able to receive legal advice in child support, visitation, and custody cases, learn about the skills and values they need as parents and attend family gatherings that united fathers with their children.
Over the years, the effect of Fortune's services for formerly incarcerated fathers has extended beyond our own clients and into the community. Peggy wrote, Along with our partners, Fortune has truly been influential in encouraging the Office of Child Support Enforcement to understand that the fathers we work with are not "deadbeat dads," but are fathers who want to take the "right step" but were struggling to make a successful reentry into the community through employment and vocational training. OCSE has since instituted numerous father-friendly programs that support father's engagement with their children.
On Father's Day, Fortune will also remember fathers who are impacted by the criminal justice system. Through our services, we will continue to advocate against mass incarceration and support people in the process of rebuilding their lives and growing as nurturing parents.
Read The Fortune Society's Family Services Fortune News issue below.]]>
Seminary Announces 'Morally Right' Decision to Remove This Question From Its Admissions Applications
A seminary located in New York City has decided to ban the "box seeking criminal histories" on its applications for admission, calling the move "morally right" and "faithful" to its traditions.
"In accepting the White House's Fair Chance in Higher Education Pledge, we are calling on all sister theological institutions across the nation to do the same," Union Theological Seminary said in a statement to media. "Not only is this decision morally right and deeply faithful to our many traditions, it is sound public policy."
The Blaze
5 Rikers Officers Convicted in Beating of Inmate
Five correction officers accused in the brutal beating of a Rikers Islandinmate were convicted of all charges on Tuesday, including the most serious count of first-degree attempted gang assault, in a case that shined a harsh light on the New York City jail complex.
The inmate at the center of the case, Jahmal Lightfoot, said after the verdict that "justice got served."
New York Times
Forget Closing Rikers
At a conference about incarceration at The New School in April, two other men who'd done time at Rikers expressed skepticism about calls to close it. Like Graham, both men emphasized a more urgent priority: shifting the focus at Rikers to real rehabilitation, a purpose for which the island's location and size could be ideal.
The Marshall Project
Fraud Charges Against Jail Officers' Union Chief With a Taste for Luxury
As federal agents tell it, the kickback scheme that led to the arrest on Wednesday of Norman Seabrook, the powerful leader of the New York City correction officers' union, was hatched one night in late 2013 in a hotel room in the Dominican Republic.
The union president had been drinking and was delivering an earful to a well-connected New York real estate developer, according to the agents. For too long, Mr. Seabrook complained, he had been working hard to invest the union's money and had not received anything in return.
New York Times
Violence and Corruption in a Prison Union
Mr. Seabrook on Tuesday tried to explain away the beating, saying that corrections officers were merely doing their jobs. This response comes as no surprise, given his efforts to obstruct reforms and investigations meant to hold guards accountable for crimes against inmates.
Corrections officers have been loyal to Mr. Seabrook, who has controlled the union for more than two decades. But they could well change their minds once they learn that he placed their retirement money at risk.
New York Times
Norman Seabrook's Ouster as Union Chief May Complicate Overhaul at Rikers
Among the rank-and-file, Mr. Seabrook commanded tremendous loyalty. Unlike the department officials and the commissioners who came and went, he was one of them, a correction officer born in the Bronx and raised poor as one of eight children. He was also a black man leading a heavily black union, sensitive to racial issues on the job and in the community.
New York Times
Norman Seabrook Cultivated Clout and Loyalty
The longtime president of the Correction Officers' Benevolent Association, which represents more than 9,000 officers who work at city jails, Mr. Seabrook has publicly clashed with Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration and the Department of Correction. In his 21 years leading the union, he has carefully cultivated his political clout, according to people who have worked with him.
"In many ways, he ran the department," said a former city official. "Commissioners come and go, and he had an outsized influence."
Wall Street Journal
'Systemic' Lapses Found in Escape of 2 Killers From Dannemora Prison
Officer Blair's failure was just one of scores of serious security lapses detailed in a report released on Monday by state investigators to coincide with the first anniversary of the escape at the maximum security state prison in northern New York. The breakout touched off a three-week manhunt that drew nationwide attention to the dense woods around Dannemora, home to the prison.
New York Times
Advocates' report details alleged abuses after Dannemora escape
While the state Inspector General's report detailed the factors that contributed to the escape from Clinton Correctional Facility last June, a new report from a prisoner advocacy group levels a number of abuse claims against staff at the maximum-security prison that allegedly occurred in the wake of the escape.
The Correctional Association of NY report, largely a compilation of anonymous inmate accounts, contends that the June 6, 2015, breakout was followed by an uptick in abusive behavior by employees, plus excessive use of solitary confinement and rampant racism.
Times Union
Time for Restorative Justice in Our Schools
In school every day, the first thing that greets us is police officers and a metal detector. It's demoralizing and, for many of us, can be traumatizing. Once inside the building, students like me face stereotypes that we will never graduate, that we will drop out and have a child, that we are trouble waiting to happen. It feels like the system isn't built to build us up and support us, but to break us down mentally and emotionally. Research shows the presence of police leads only to an increase in students being arrested for minor incidents. Instead of investing in students, our state is investing in the school-to-prison pipeline. And it's time for that to change.
Gotham Gazette
Obama Just Told 20 People They Won't Die In Prison
President Barack Obama will commute the sentence of 42 federal prisoners on Friday, a senior administration official told The Huffington Post.
All told, Obama has now issued 348 commutations — more than the amount issued by the past seven presidents combined — though advocates have encouraged him to be even bolder.
Huffington Post
Supreme Court to Hear Death Penalty Cases
"Left uncorrected, trial counsel's injection of explicit racial discrimination into Mr. Buck's capital sentencing profoundly undermines confidence in the integrity of both Mr. Buck's death sentence and the criminal justice system over all," Mr. Buck's lawyers told the justices.
The cases will be argued during the court's next term, which starts in October.
New York Times
Court reopens race and death penalty issues
Returning to ongoing disputes over the role of race in criminal punishment and in politics, the Supreme Court on Monday added new cases for decisions at its next Term — one involving the death penalty in Texas, the other involving the drawing of new maps for election of members of Virginia's state legislature.
SCOTUS Blog
Opinion analysis: Another step toward constitutionalizing recusal obligations
In Williams v. Pennsylvania, the Court ordered the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to reconsider Terrance Williams's allegations of prosecutorial misconduct. In doing so, the Court created a new, albeit narrow, constitutional recusal rule: a judge who has had "significant, personal involvement as a prosecutor in a critical decision regarding the defendant's case" must recuse. In this case, that meant that Chief Justice Ronald Castille of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had to recuse from Williams's post-conviction appeal, since Castille had previously approved the decision to seek the death penalty against Williams.
SCOTUS Blog
Justice Clarence Thomas's Solitary Voice
In an opinion by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the Supreme Court overturned a 30-year-old murder conviction, ruling that racial discrimination infected the selection of the all-white Georgia jury that found a black man guilty of a white woman's murder. The vote was 7 to 1. The dissenter was Justice Thomas. His vote, along with the contorted 15-page opinion that explained it, was one of the most bizarre performances I have witnessed in decades spent observing the Supreme Court. As the post-Scalia Roberts court continues to take shape — and in advance of the final onslaught of decisions to come in the next few weeks — it's worth pausing to consider this vote and the role of the justice who cast it.
New York Times
Loretta Lynch Opens DC Re-Entry Court for Felons
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch spoke in a D.C. courtroom Monday about a new program designed to keep repeat offenders out of prison. "A fundamental part of our commitment to justice is helping to make sure that once you've paid your debt to society, you are truly able to rejoin society," she said. News4's Mark Segraves reports.
NBC Washington
Hard Time
The United States is the only country in the world that routinely sentences children to life in prison without parole, and, according to estimates from nonprofits and advocacy groups, there are between 2,300 and 2,500 people serving life without parole for crimes committed when they were minors. Two-thirds of those were sentenced in just five states: Louisiana, California, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. Ninety-seven percent of them are male, according to figures from the Sentencing Project, and 60 percent are black.
The Intercept
Got a Criminal Record? It's Getting Easier, Less Expensive to Expunge It
Many Americans are not taking advantage of a growing number of state laws that allow people to clear or seal their records of arrests and convictions for an expanding list of misdemeanor crimes, and even some low-level felonies, after they've served their sentences.
Part of the reason is ignorance of the remedies that the laws allow, part of the reason is the cost. In Kentucky, Louisiana and Tennessee, for example, filing for expungement of a criminal record costs around $500. And lawyers can charge thousands of dollars to do it.
The Pew Charitable Trusts
Is a Life in Solitary "Cruel and Unusual?"
Wetzel, the nationally-known, reform-minded secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections is the lead defendant in a federal lawsuit and injunction request filed three weeks ago by lawyers for Johnson, an intellectually disabled man who allegedly has spent the past 36 years in solitary confinement in the prisons of the Keystone State. The indefinite conditions of that confinement, Johnson's lawyers contend, violate the 8th Amendment's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment."
The Marshall Project
Mental-health crisis ensnares inmates, judges, jailers and hospitals
In 25 states surveyed this year by the nonprofit Treatment Advocacy Center based in Arlington, Va., 1,956 inmates were in local jails waiting for psychiatric hospital slots, leaving them in facilities that were not designed to meet their needs at what can be triple the cost of tending to other inmates.
"If you could design a system to treat these people as ineffectively and as expensively as possible, you'd use jails the way we do," says the Treatment Advocacy Center's executive director, John Snook.
Washington Post
Virginia at Center of Racially Charged Fight Over the Right of Felons to Vote
Ms. Taylor, 45, has never voted. In 1991, when she was 20, she was stripped of her voting rights after being convicted of selling crack cocaine and sent to jail for a year. So she was stunned when an organizer from a progressive group, New Virginia Majority, showed up one recent afternoon at the church soup kitchen where she eats lunch and said he could register her.
New York Times
I Survived a Suicide Attempt in Jail
When I was doing drugs, there had always been this third-person observer in me, just watching the entropy of my life. I had been a project manager for technology companies, and my whole professional career was about painstakingly putting things together. But the process of entropy — of having everything fall apart — is much faster.
The third person observer in me said, "If you live through this, find a way to use all this in a positive way. Make it worth it."
The Marshall Project
Learning Behind Bars
Among those working to bring greater visibility to the issue of schooling in juvenile-detention facilities is David Domenici, the director of the Center for Educational Excellence in Alternative Settings (CEEAS), a nonprofit devoted to improving teaching and learning at juvenile-justice schools. In 2013 CEEAS developed "Words Unlocked," a nationwide poetry contest to amplify the voices and creative talents of incarcerated youngsters. After speaking recently at an education summit hosted by The Atlantic, Domenici offered additional thoughts on why educating students in juvenile facilities deserves more attention and support. The interview that follows has been edited for length and clarity.
The Atlantic
How Prison Debt Ensnares Offenders
"Jurisdictions are imposing a great deal of fines and fees on people who have an inability to pay them. A consequence is that people are permanently tethered to the criminal-justice system, are being issued warrants and summons to court, and are being held accountable for their poverty, essentially," Harris said. A sociology professor at the University of Washington, she became interested in LFOs—legal financial obligations—after completing some work requested by the Washington State Minority and Justice Commission. Expanding the scope of the work led her to conclude that, "some jurisdictions are sending people to jail solely for their indigence, for their inability to make payments on their fines and fees."
The Atlantic
The Smart Way to Help Ex-Convicts, and Society
Criminal justice reform is not just about being fair to the individuals who will be most directly affected, but it's also about doing what's right for our nation's well-being. A 2009 study estimated that the official poverty rate would have declined by 10 percent for the years 1980 until 2004 had it not been for our incarceration policies. And while there hasn't been a large-scale study of the economic effects of criminal-justice reform, most experts in the field agree that preparing people for life after prison is a critically important public investment that would alleviate poverty and increase worker productivity.
New York Times
The Newest Rape Crisis Hotlines Serve an Unlikely Group — Prisoners
For inmates who are sexually assaulted, getting help from outside has until recently been nearly impossible. But now some states and counties are making help easier to get by setting up prison sexual assault hotlines. A 2013 report from the Bureau of Justice statistics shows one reason being able to talk to someone outside matters: Prisoners are raped more often by staff than other inmates.
Some private prisons are, um, public.
In the end, the real harm is being done to those incarcerated. Local jails with profit motives are incentivized to house increasing numbers of people, without regard for services or educational programs for those incarcerated. The Times-Picayune reports that in Louisiana, those stuck in local jails on state contracts "subsist in bare-bones conditions with few programs to give them a better shot at becoming productive citizens."
Prison Policy Initiative
Prisoners Deserve the Benefit of the Doubt
The judiciary enjoys high legitimacy as an institution of government. Given that fact, the courts should avoid legitimating the prison system by interpreting the law to allow only occasional intervention when the facts are especially bad. The court should take a broader view, and give the benefit of the doubt to prisoners who see the courts as the only institution capable of protecting them from the bad things that happen in prisons.
Bloomberg View
Public defenders can be biased, too, and it hurts their non-white clients
Given that most public defenders handle a high volume of cases and clients — sometimes in the hundreds — their decision-making process is vulnerable to unconscious bias. A public defender may try harder for a client that he or she perceives as more educated or likely to be successful because of their race.
Washington Post
To Stop Bad Prosecutors, Call the Feds
David Brown's case is a good example of how every part of the justice system bears some responsibility for not fighting prosecutorial misconduct. State courts often fail to hold prosecutors accountable, even when their wrongdoing is clear. Professional ethics boards rarely discipline them. And individual prosecutors are protected from civil lawsuits, while criminal punishment is virtually unheard of. Money damages levied against a prosecutor's office could deter some misconduct, but the Supreme Court has made it extremely difficult for wrongfully convicted citizens to win such claims.
New York Times
California's Prison System Co-opts Reform Language While Increasing Its Budget
In order to advance community-based solutions, we cannot continue to increase the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's budget and entrust them with undoing the mental, emotional and physical trauma that has been sustained by people before — and made worse by — incarceration. We cannot continue to believe that behind walls, out of the sight of the public, that abuse does not continue. The department is continuing to cycle people in and out of prison in the name of "job security" while monopolizing resources that should be used to build strong communities and place people's care in the very communities they came from.
Chicago's Jail Kept Inmates Locked Up for 218 Years Too Long
The wait for a case to reach conviction can be so long that many of the jail's inmates serve more time in Cook County than they are eventually sentenced to spend in prison, what's known as "dead days." For instance, if an inmate is convicted to 100 days in state prison, and spends 300 days in Cook County waiting for their case to reach conviction, they will have served 200 dead days.
The Daily Beast
Utah man whose long drug sentence stirred controversy is released
One federal inmate who was released — but not under Obama's clemency initiative — is Weldon Angelos, 36, a father of three from Utah who was sentenced in 2004 to a 55-year mandatory minimum prison term in connection with selling marijuana.
The specific circumstances of Angelos's release are unclear because court records in his case are sealed. But after a long campaign from his supporters, including Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Angelos was quietly released Tuesday after a federal court granted him an immediate reduction in sentence. He was able to immediately go home to his family without serving three months in a halfway house, as those who receive clemency are required to do.
Washington Post
The end of life without parole for juveniles in Philadelphia?
Over the last few decades, Philadelphia has become known as the juvenile-lifer capital of the world, home to 300 people sentenced as teens to die in prison.
That era is rapidly drawing to a close.
Two men locked up since the 1970s received new sentences Friday, making them eligible for parole immediately. It marks the start of a resentencing process in the city that could take up to three years.
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Senator Tom Cotton Wants to Keep Kids in Jail
While many conservatives have joined with Democrats to embrace sentencing reform and other efforts to reduce a record prison population, Cotton is on a different path. He rails against the "criminal leniency movement," and says he has nothing but "contempt" for those who want more "empathy" for criminals. He quotes Hillary Clinton's comment from the '90s about "superpredators," for which she has apologized, saying she got it right.
The Daily Beast
High Court Blocks Suit Against Prison Guard
Shaidon Blake had been in prison for two months after his 2007 conviction for a gang-related murder when he says the guards moving him to a segregation unit physically assaulted him without cause.
The Internal Investigative Unit of the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services spent a year looking into Blake's report of the incident, and ultimately found that guard James Madigan had used excessive force against Blake by punching him in the face while he was handcuffed.
Courthouse News Services
Will Ohio's prison watchdog be silenced after chief's ouster?
Saul says she was doing her job as a watchdog over the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, which has a $1.5 billion annual budget. Her involvement ranged from going after a vendor when maggots were found in prison food to challenging practices at a privatized prison plagued by gangs and drugs.
GOP leaders say she displayed "insubordination and rogue behavior," attempting to exert power she did not legally possess.
The Columbus Dispatch
Life After Life
After his release from prison, Hernandez took a full-time position as a welder and now splits his time between his full-time job and traveling across the country to advocate for the release of nonviolent drug offenders serving life sentences. He's also working on developing a curriculum for juvenile offenders and at-risk kids to help keep them out of prison.
Nearly two decades after his arrest, Hernandez reflects on his path from a rising teenage drug dealer to an advocate for people that the system has forgotten.
Texas Monthly
Prison officials change tactics as research points to failures of seclusion
In a radical policy reversal inspired by research that solitary confinement harms people and does not make the prison safer, officials reduced the number of people in seclusion by about 70 percent from its peak over the past year. They report no jump in violence since.
The segregation wing, once conceived as a place to seclude the most dangerous, is being reimagined as a home for rehabilitation. Through group activities, behavioral health treatment and a system of incentives, administrators seek to teach their most dangerous prisoners to be less violent.
Bismarck Tribune
Tennessee Supreme Court weighs inmates' rights to file lawsuits
A Franklin lawyer challenging a state law that says inmates who have past-due court fees cannot file new cases asked the Tennessee Supreme Court Thursday to deem the law unconstitutional.
David Veile of Schell & Davies law firm argued before the state's top court Thursday on behalf of inmate Reginald D. Hughes. Hughes' appeal of a decision that denied him parole in 2011 was dismissed because he owed $258.85 in fees, according to court records.
The Tennessean
Wisconsin's system fails to track assaults at juvenile prisons
State corrections officials have fallen six months behind in publishing an annual report on attacks on officers, and Wisconsin's youth prisons have yet to implement a centralized database tracking assaults, fights and other incidents.
At the juvenile facilities, officials store paper copies of reports in inmates' files, making it difficult to identify the extent of problems at the two institutions now under criminal investigation.
Journal Sentinel
Candy snatcher convicted of attempted theft; lengthy prison term less likely under habitual offender law
The case attracted national attention after Criminal District Court Judge Franz Zibilich noted in court that Grimes faced 20 years to life in prison if the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office decided to enhance his sentence by invoking his five prior theft convictions.
In response to concerns raised by the judge, District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro asserted that "shoplifters will not be doing 20-year sentences." But the DA has not ruled out upping Grimes' sentence from the one-year term he now faces by labeling him a habitual offender.
The New Orleans Advocate
One in 10 Dallas inmates locked up solely because they're mentally ill. Can officials change that?
These are largely poor people who don't need to be locked up, said Andy Keller, CEO of Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute. They're accused of minor, nonviolent crimes such as trespassing, panhandling and disturbing the peace.
Keller presented a plan Thursday that aims to keep the mentally ill who aren't dangerous out of the jail. This population, Keller said, is separate from the rest of the jail's mentally ill inmates who are accused of serious crimes.
The Dallas Morning News
Fight or Flight: Anthony Harris has two weeks to turn himself in before spending the next 15 years in prison
Arrested on May 20, 2014, and charged with 21 counts of felony and misdemeanor charges, Harris faced 252.5 years in prison. In exchange for his guilty plea, he agreed to serve 15 years.
But 9 a.m. arrives, the time Harris and the court agreed that he would turn himself in. The courtyard quiets as almost everyone has entered the building. Harris is nowhere to be seen. 9:05 a.m… 9:10 a.m…. and he is still missing.
Baltimore City Paper
Orleans jail hearing: Low pay cause of staffing problems, HR director says
After conducting most of the outgoing employees exit interviews and based on conversations with staff members, Buchanan said, she has determined that employees are mostly leaving their jobs because of low entry-level wages. The sheriff's office cannot compete with other law enforcement agencies in the New Orleans metro area regarding wages, she said. Moreover, low pay also thwarts recruitment, Buchanan said. Starting pay for deputies tasked with guarding inmates at the jail after six months on the job is $12.36, she testified. Before guards hit the six-month mark, the agency pays just over $11.
The Times-Picayune
Running with criminals: the prison that helps inmates rehabilitate a mile at a time
Every year, he adds another mile. And with every step of every mile, Connelly dives into the pain. The leg soreness. The knee aches. The stomach cramps. But most of the pain he feels has nothing to do with the running. "It's shameful, it hurts," he said. "It hurt everybody that I love on both sides of the family, our friends. It hurt everybody who knew and cared for me."
It's a cathartic way to spend the anniversary of his crime. "It's healing," Connelly said. "It gives me permission to go into that, to see where I'm at with it."
The Guardian]]>
Voting Initiative
Learn about your options for obtaining a Certificate of Relief from Disabilities or a Certificate of Good Conduct, which can help you obtain the right to vote, remove bars to employment and aid with finding housing. Speak to trained attorney volunteers about what steps to take in order to exercise your right to vote at this event hosted by The Fortune Society.
Castle Gardens
625 W. 140th St.
New York, NY 10031
Wednesday, June 15, 2016 from 5:30 pm to 8: 30 pm
June 18
Challenging Incarceration: Struggling for Justice in New York State
Representatives from campaigns such as Parole Justice New York and Education From the Inside Out will conduct a panelists discussion on injustices within the criminal justice system. Topics will include solitary confinement, brutality, parole, and education and mental health needs.
625 West 140th street
Castle Gardens Community Room, 11th Floor
Saturday, June 18, 2016 from 12 pm to 2 pm
Click here for more information.
June 18
Boyz N2 Men
This event will feature a discussion between young men ages 9-18+ about issues that are important in their lives. The Keynote speaker will be M. K. Asante, who is a rapper, professor & author. There will be interactive sessions on topics including Street Smarts, College Prep and Police Interaction, as well as an AT&T Mentoring Match-Up featuring professionals from different industries.
Sondra S. Mack & David S. Mack Student Center – Hofstra University 1000 Hempstead Turnpike (North Campus), Uniondale, NY
Saturday, June 18, 2016 from 8 am to 3 pm
Click here for more information.
June 22
Homeless Services 101, What Reentry Service Providers Need to Know
This Webinar will address the role of homelessness in leading individuals to the criminal justice system. Presenters will discuss how homelessness and the prison system intersect, solutions, and how organizations can better serve people experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness.
Wednesday, June 22, 2016 from 2 pm to 3:30 pm
Click here for more information.]]>
A guard drops you off at the local bus stop, hands you a ticket and says, "Good luck".
It's the first time your feet touch free ground in five years. Everything around you is different. The way people dress, the transportation system, the speed at which everyone seems to be moving. You immediately feel lost. You want to run back into your prison, where it's safe, where it's predictable. It's what you know.
Now here you stand, at the bus stop, waiting to be taken home. The bus finally arrives. And you look at your reflection in the door's window. You're 30 years old now. You have four kids waiting for you at the other end of this ride. You have no money, no marketable skills, and no idea how to get a job. What do you do next?
Lloyd doesn't need to imagine this impossible situation. Three years ago, it was his life.
A drug dealer since age 13, he grew up with money in his hand and power in the streets. For nearly fifteen years he was untouchable, or so he thought. In August, 2007— 24 days after the birth of his fourth child— his power was taken. He spent the next five years in prison. When he finally came home, he was utterly lost with no place to truly call "home." His family and children resented him, his old cronies turned on him and he had absolutely no way to support himself— at least not legally. He knew he didn't want to go back to prison, but he didn't know anything other than hustling.
A few months later he found The Fortune Society.
Lloyd enrolled in the Employment Services program, determined to find a job and get back into his children's lives. He immediately took advantage of every aspect of case management, career guidance, mentorship, and relationship development support he could get his hands on. He also accepted the recommendation to engage with Fortune's Family Services programming. Initially, he was overwhelmed. The child support arrears, alone, which accrued during his incarceration, were enough to cripple his spirit.
Still, despite his desperation for quick cash, he allowed himself to hear— and heed— all of the advice being given to him. Through his Career Advisor, he enrolled in, and was accepted into, Fortune's green training program. He gained hands-on experience in carpentry, electrical, and plumbing installation, and earned several industry-recognized certifications. His course facilitator told him he had the "goods" to succeed in this field.
Succeed? Him? Wow.
The next step, he knew, was to get real work experience – the kind you could put on a resume, with pride. His Account Manager connected him to the subsidized Transitional Work program. He was placed, part-time, at the very training facility where he had earned his construction certifications. He apprenticed for the instructors and showed an immediate interest in the environmental field.
The facility hired him on full-time as a training assistant, starting at $12 per hour. Paycheck in hand, he worked with the Family Services lawyer to set up a child support payment plan, and completed all of the family-based training that Family Services offered. His reputation with both his family and his employer began to grow strong.
Today — just three years after that day at the bus stop — Lloyd is making $35 an hour as an environmental specialist with a New York-based company. He has joint custody of his children and a stronger relationship with their mother. With the help of Fortune's wrap-around services, Lloyd is now a positive, contributing member to society and a true role model to his four children.
He's actually quite proud of who he's become.
To learn more about Employment Services, contact Hubert Lila, Career Advisor, at 347-510-3686 or at email@example.com.
Read the full story in our forthcoming issue of the Fortune News in next week's Weekly.]]>