from the April 13, 2007 New York Times front page
Accusers Recant, but Hopes Still Fade in Sing Sing By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
After five young people identified him in court as the murderer, Fernando Bermudez was convicted in 1992 of killing a 16-year-old youth in Greenwich Village. No other evidence — a gun, a fingerprint or a clear motive — tied him to the crime.
He has been jailed ever since, despite the fact that for 14 years, the same five witnesses have insisted their testimony was false. The five gave sworn statements in 1993 that Mr. Bermudez was not the killer and that their testimony had been manipulated by the police and prosecutors. They did so at the risk of being charged with perjury, and they have stuck with those accounts even as they have approached middle age, taken on steady jobs and raised families. Nonetheless, the recantations have had little impact. The same judicial system that once relied on the witnesses now no longer believes them.
“What does it take, with the system that we have, to reinvestigate a wrongful conviction?” said Scott Christianson, a supporter of Mr. Bermudez and a former state criminal justice official. “It’s really beyond me.”
The reason is based in the prevailing wisdom of the American justice system, which views recantations as untrustworthy, acts not of conscience, but of sympathy or bribery or coercion. That view is so deeply ingrained that one judge, rejecting one of Mr. Bermudez’s appeals in 1995, said candidly that five recantations were simply too many to believe.
In recent years, though, the reliability of recantations is being re-evaluated, driven in part by the growing number of cases in which DNA evidence has cleared people who had been locked behind bars for years. In several recent cases, DNA evidence has shown not only that people were innocent, but that witnesses who had recanted really were telling the truth. “Blanket suspicion of recantations is clearly not warranted,” said Rob Warden, executive director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at the Northwestern University School of Law. “We know now that many of the traditional precepts that have been held by the courts are not warranted, and yet the courts continue to cling to them.”
Mr. Bermudez, 38, a husband and father of three, has no exculpatory DNA evidence in his corner. He is serving a sentence of 23 years to life and has watched appeal after appeal fail.
Yet he has never wavered from the account he first told investigators: He did not know the victim, Raymond Blount, he had no motive to shoot him and he was elsewhere with friends at the time of the murder in August 1991.
Two friends who were with Mr. Bermudez that night have given accounts that support his own. Their versions also have not wavered since the crime.
Mr. Bermudez’s supporters say he was a victim of the crime wave that beset New York in the early 1990s. They say that the police and prosecutors, overwhelmed in the face of a near record number of murders, seized on bad evidence, settled for easy answers, ignored looming contradictions and bullied impressionable young witnesses into testifying against Mr. Bermudez.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office rejects those assertions. It notes that the conviction of Mr. Bermudez has been upheld several times, most recently by a federal court in 2006. “A federal magistrate found after an extensive hearing,” said Barbara Thompson, a spokeswoman for the district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, “that the recantations of the eyewitnesses were incredible, that the conduct of the trial prosecutor with respect to the witnesses was proper and that the defendant’s due process rights had not been violated.”
The same magistrate judge, however, noted missteps in the case, among them allowing the people who identified Mr. Bermudez as the killer to view his mug shot as a group, a prejudicial blunder that in New York is nearly always grounds for ordering a retrial. The police also failed to look for the man whom the main witness had first implicated.
The police investigation was led by a detective who had been involved in an earlier homicide case in which a young man had been mistakenly identified as a killer only to have his conviction overturned. The detective was suspended from the force after being charged in a drunken-driving accident in 2004 in which two women were critically injured.
Mr. Bermudez’s situation has attracted a legion of supporters, including lawyers, law professors, a retired detective and a former federal judge. “The evidence powerfully shows that Bermudez is innocent,” said Bennett L. Gershman, a professor at Pace University Law School.
Mr. Bermudez’s hopes now rest on an appeal before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In an interview at Sing Sing prison, he recalled the faith he once had in the system. “I believed that it was as simple as telling the truth,” he said, “and the truth prevailing.” Now, he says, the truth doesn’t matter.
The Crime
Much of what happened to Raymond Blount early on Aug. 4, 1991, is not in dispute. On a dance floor at the Marc Ballroom on Union Square West, Mr. Blount punched another teenager, Efrain Lopez, apparently after he caught the youth looking at him the wrong way.
Angry and embarrassed, Mr. Lopez later testified, he approached a man in the club whom he knew from his neighborhood and told him what had happened. Later, at 3 a.m. outside the club, Mr. Lopez and his friends again encountered Mr. Blount and his friends. People broke bottles, ready to fight. The man from the neighborhood asked Mr. Lopez to point out the puncher. Mr. Lopez pointed at Mr. Blount. With that, the man jogged up and fired one .25-caliber bullet into Mr. Blount’s abdomen, severing an artery. He died at a hospital later that morning.
The killing was one of 10 in Greenwich Village that year.
“The Police Department was stretched,” said Mr. Christianson, who has written about the case. “The district attorney was stretched.”
Mr. Bermudez’s supporters say lapses in the investigation began within hours. Several of Mr. Blount’s friends were hauled into a windowless Police Department storage room. Photographs of young Latino men with arrest records were placed before them. Among the photographs was one of Mr. Bermudez, a graduate of St. Nicholas of Tolentine High School in the Bronx.
He had been arrested a year earlier on a marijuana possession charge and faced a separate charge that he had tried to sell 165 grams of cocaine to an undercover agent. But he had no history of violence and was living with his parents in an apartment in the Inwood section of Manhattan.
The photograph of Mr. Bermudez caught the eye of one witness, Jamie Velazquez. She asked, “Who’s this cutie?” or something to that effect, according to court records. The man looked, she said, like someone she had seen at the club. She and three other witnesses conferred and agreed he resembled the gunman.
A federal judge later found that the police had violated regulations that bar witnesses from collectively viewing a mug shot. Courts have ruled that such discussions allow witnesses to be improperly influenced by others.
But that morning, the police thought they had a lead on a suspect.
A Key Witness
The next evening, Aug. 5, detectives brought in the teenager who had been punched, Efrain Lopez, for questioning. Mr. Lopez, who had served time in prison for stealing a car, feared being charged in the shooting, he said later, because he had pointed out Mr. Blount for the gunman.
Over the next 27 hours, he was questioned about what had happened, eventually admitting he knew the gunman. The killer’s name is Lou, he said in a videotaped statement. Wool Lou was his street name, because he sold “wools,” slang for crack cocaine. Wool Lou, Mr. Lopez said, hung out near Mr. Lopez’s grandmother’s building on West 92nd Street, and in a schoolyard nearby. At trial, Mr. Lopez would testify that he had gone to Public School 84 with Wool Lou, and knew him to be Puerto Rican.
None of these descriptions matched Mr. Bermudez. He is of Dominican descent and lived on 204th Street, six miles from Mr. Lopez’s neighborhood. He had not attended P.S. 84. And he had never been called Wool Lou.
But presented with a photo array of suspects, Mr. Lopez pointed to Mr. Bermudez. As it turned out, there was a man known as Wool Lou who lived on West 91st Street, in Mr. Lopez’s neighborhood, and had a criminal record, though not for dealing drugs. His name, Luis Muñoz, and his street alias were in the Police Department’s files. Anyone looking at the files may have noticed how closely Mr. Muñoz’s facial features matched those of Mr. Bermudez.
But the police were satisfied they had their man. They never interviewed anyone from Mr. Lopez’s neighborhood, never spoke with any of his friends who knew the man named Wool Lou, or with anyone else from the 92nd Street schoolyard where Mr. Lopez said Wool Lou hung out. For his part, Mr. Muñoz said years later that he did not commit the crime.
The Arrest
On Aug. 6, detectives picked up Mr. Bermudez for questioning. From that moment, his supporters say, they should have wondered whether they had the right man.
Witnesses had said the gunman was light-skinned, thin, Hispanic, 5 feet 11 inches tall and 165 pounds, a description that the defense later argued matched that of the man listed in police files as Wool Lou. Mr. Bermudez was darker, and he stood a muscular 6-foot-1 and weighed 205 pounds.
Nonetheless, he was brought to the Sixth Precinct station for questioning by Detective Daniel Massanova. Mr. Bermudez told the detective and an assistant district attorney, James G. Rodriguez, that he and three of his buddies had spent the night of the shooting driving around Manhattan looking for girls. At 2 a.m. they ate at a restaurant a few blocks from the shooting, he acknowledged. But he said they had left the area by 2:30, a half-hour before the shooting, and were back in Inwood by 3 a.m. Mr. Bermudez was then placed in a police lineup in which he and several “fillers” were told to sit down instead of standing. His supporters say it had the effect of reducing the disparity between his height and that of the gunman described by witnesses.
One witness, Nkosi Boyce, later told a federal magistrate that detectives at the lineup had repeatedly asked him about Mr. Bermudez. “They said, ‘Is that him?’ ” Mr. Boyce testified. “I said, ‘It’s not him.’ They asked me again, ‘Is that him?’ I said, ‘That’s not him.’ ”
The prosecution did not ask Mr. Boyce to testify at trial.
Mr. Bermudez was represented by Barry Kenyon, a lawyer who hired a retired detective to help him prepare for trial. But they had little time. The district attorney’s office did not turn over its evidence until the last business day before the trial’s start in January 1992.
With only a weekend to study thousands of pages of witness statements, autopsy reports and grainy videotape of Mr. Lopez’s statement, Mr. Kenyon did little to challenge the credibility of the five witnesses. Four of the five, it turned out, had arrest or conviction records. One, Michael Thompson, had a gun possession charge that was dropped by the district attorney just before trial. That fact was never presented to the jury.
The key witness, Mr. Lopez, seemed the most troubled of all, a convicted car thief who said he routinely smoked marijuana. He was aware, he acknowledged later, that he might be charged if he did not cooperate with authorities.
At trial, Mr. Lopez’s role was crucial. On Jan. 28, 1992, he pointed to Mr. Bermudez and identified him as the killer. Four other witnesses did the same.
Still, the prosecutor, Mr. Rodriguez, lacked a clear motive to explain the killing, since Mr. Bermudez did not know anyone involved. Instead, he depicted Mr. Bermudez as a spoiled brat who dealt drugs, slept late, thought highly of himself and, thus, thought nothing of killing someone on a whim. And he suggested that Mr. Bermudez had suddenly begun wearing eyeglasses during the trial to confuse witnesses about his appearance.
It was enough, even without physical evidence. On Feb. 6, 1992, after an 11-day trial, a jury convicted Mr. Bermudez, then 22, of second-degree murder.
The Recantations
Years later, one witness, Mr. Thompson, says he still struggles to explain why he testified against Mr. Bermudez. “When you’re not educated or you just don’t know, when the cops tell you to do something, you do it,” said Mr. Thompson, 34, a married father who works at a private clinic for the mentally ill. “You figure they got the guy, he must have done it.”
Another witness, Okpa Iyesi, is now an elder at a church in Maryland. In his recantation, he said the prosecutor had lied to him, telling him that ballistics evidence already pointed to Mr. Bermudez as the killer, according to court records.
Ms. Velazquez, the witness, said she told Mr. Rodriguez on the eve of the trial that she did not think Mr. Bermudez was the killer, the court records show.
And Mr. Lopez said he knew all along that Mr. Bermudez was not Wool Lou. But he said the authorities threatened to charge him with murder if he didn’t cooperate. And he said Detective Massanova had made it obvious that he wanted him to pick out the Bermudez photograph. “He didn’t tell me, ‘Pick him,’ but he was like, pick him,” Mr. Lopez said in an interview. Detective Massanova, in an interview, denied coaxing Mr. Lopez. He and the prosecutor have denied any improprieties.
Approached by Mr. Bermudez’s first appeals lawyer in 1993, each witness submitted a sworn affidavit retracting the identification of him as Mr. Blount’s killer. But recantations have long been regarded with skepticism. Jury verdicts are meant to offer finality, legal experts say. Recantations undermine that certainty, if all it takes to reopen a case is to get witnesses to revise their testimony.
Some judges have ruled that recantations should be given more weight in cases where the original testimony constituted the only evidence. Few trials, though, have had five witnesses identify someone as a murderer, only to attest later that their testimony had been false. The very number upset Justice John A. K. Bradley, the Bermudez trial judge, who dismissed the first motion for a retrial without a hearing.“It strains credulity to believe that five unshaken trial witnesses would suddenly claim that they had testified falsely under oath,” he wrote in a 1995 decision. Had Mr. Bermudez presented fewer than five, he said, it would have been more believable.
In 1997, a state appeals court, citing “the inherent unreliability of recantations,” affirmed the conviction.
Appeals Pile Up
At first blush, the Bermudez case seems fertile ground for appeal, with a last-minute delivery of evidence, a conviction that relied on testimony from teenagers with legal problems of their own, and police work that the defense has characterized as slapdash.
But appeals courts tend not to look at mistakes in the aggregate. Rather, they consider whether any one error represents a violation of an appellant’s constitutional rights or a basic miscarriage of justice.
Appeals courts also generally limit their reviews to what happened on the record at trial and avoid delving into evidence that was not presented to a jury. It is a process that favors appellants whose lawyers aggressively raise objections and exploit gaps in evidence at trial, something Mr. Bermudez’s lawyer, Mr. Kenyon, acknowledges he did not do enough of — in part, he said, because the family lacked the money to fully investigate the case.
In 2002, though, a federal magistrate, Kevin Nathaniel Fox, finally agreed to hear testimony from the five recanting witnesses, as well as from the prosecutor, police detectives and Mr. Bermudez’s alibi witnesses.
He concluded that the prosecutor’s summation had included improper remarks, and that the police never should have allowed witnesses to discuss the mug shot as a group, a blunder he called “impermissibly suggestive and conducive to irreparable misidentification.”But he discounted the recantations as unbelievable. He rejected the account of one witness because, he said, her testimony reflected a more precise recollection of events than she had exhibited at trial. On Judge Fox’s recommendation, a judge in Federal District Court, Loretta A. Preska, turned down Mr. Bermudez’s bid.
Now Mr. Bermudez awaits the judgment on his latest, perhaps final, appeal. He has a clean disciplinary record and spends evenings reading legal briefs. His wife, whom he met through correspondence, and his children visit him every few weeks. In 15 years his story has not changed. “I sometimes have to manufacture hope,” he said, “because this is a very depressing, dangerous, evil place.”
Detective Massanova is now battling his own problems. He is on trial on charges related to the off-duty car accident in 2004 that injured the two women. In an interview, he declined to say whether he still thought Mr. Bermudez killed Mr. Blount.
“Bermudez is in jail because a number of people said he was the shooter,” he said. “I can’t use a lie detector test on everybody who comes in.”
Monday, April 30, 2007
Friday, March 30, 2007
April 2007 Edition
Dear Reader,
March did not bring much in the way of encouraging news. The Parole Board seems to be releasing less people than ever; Governor Spitzer issued two executive orders which do not sit well with most of us; Jalil Montaqim is about to be extradited to CA [see Article 5]; and the bad news keeps on coming. But we will not give up! In the words of Vaclav Havel, “Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense no matter how it turns out.” And there are positive signs. The Think Tank meetings attracted energetic and positive people, ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work on producing Family Empowerment Day3. Our telephone bills are about to become lower, or so we’ve been led to expect. Now it’s April and we hope to find pleasure in this season of rebirth, as the flowers sprout up, and the drab landscape turns to color! May we find joy in the little things...
ARTICLES:
1. AD HOC PAROLE REFORM GROUP - practitioners, policy makers, people who have served long prison sentences, and other stakeholders met to discuss possible partnerships in promoting recommendations (included in the article) for parole reform in NYS.
2. EAST HARLEM INCARCERATION STATISTICS - one in every twenty men living on Lexington Ave between 119th St and 126th St will be sent to prison.
3. FED3 THINK TANKS MET IN MARCH - Feedback will guide the decisions of the Steering Committee as they plan the next step in the Family Empowerment Movement. NYC group decided to meet again on April 17, continuing on a monthly basis.
4. GEO MEETING CANCELED DUE TO “PROBLEMS” WITH GUEST’S REGISTRATION FORMS - GEO denied access to the goals stated in DOCS Dir. 4760, allegedly for insufficient information from the invited C.U.R.E. guests.
5. JALIL MUNTAQIM EXTRADITION ORDERED - Judge denies Jalil's writ of habeas corpus, and indicated that although Muntaqim may have defenses to the warrant such as the fact that he was already incarcerated at the time of the murder, they were outside his jurisdiction to rule upon.
6. LIFE IN A FEMALE FACILITY - “Most days I feel like just a game piece on the gameboard of something akin to “Correctional Pursuit” and the only beneficiaries are the policy makers who have no consideration for the lives they are playing with.”..
7. MERIT TIME --Feedback on the new bill introduced by Sen Montgomery is not all positive.
8. MODERN DAY SLAVERY - Incarcerated people are being used to replace migrant farm workers, at .60 a day.
9. OTISVILLE BROADBAND PAROLE SUPPORT INITIATIVE - The answers to your questions: Strategies, Accountability, and Goals; plus this month’s candidate, Ramon Gonzalez.
10. PRISON CLOSURE BACKLASH - Republicans say they won’t join effort to create a committee to propose prison closures, saying it is up to Spitzer to advance the idea himself.
11. PRISON RADIO - Independent radio productions are your only place to hear alternatives to the mainstream media propaganda
12. REQUIRED PROGRAMS: WHO BENEFITS? - Often facilitated by long termers who watch as their short term students are released while they themselves are being hit by the parole board over and over.
13. THE SQUARE FETTER - Part 3 in a serialized vignette. “Months after Jones’ strange day in court, he still . cringed from the tap, tap rapping of the judge’s time-sick gavel.”
14. SUPPORT MEETINGS - Albany, Buffalo, Poughkeepsie, Schenectady and NYC all have meetings for people dealing with the incarceration of loved ones.
15. TELEPHONE JUSTICE CAMPAIGN - Actions to take, and what to expect on April 1.
16. TRANSPORTATION TO PRISONS - from the Capitol District, Albany-Troy, and on the Ride Board
17. WHAT’S HAPPENING AROUND NEW YORK STATE - Encouraging and inspiring reports from Ithaca’s CAB, Buffalo’s PRP2!, NYC’s CPR, and No. Babylon’s PFA: “White, black, hispanic and 'other' now become the ‘green race’ that faces a similar shameful indifference.
18. WORK RELEASE UPDATE - Readers have sent 14 pages of Work Release petitions with 232 signatures to Gov. Spitzer so far; still he issued Executive Order #9, cutting back on eligibility for work release.
1. AD HOC PAROLE REFORM GROUP
On Wednesday, March 28, an ad hoc parole reform group, composed of practitioners, policy makers, people who have served long prison sentences, and other stakeholders met to discuss possible partnerships aimed at building momentum around parole reform issues in NYS. I don't have permission to reveal their names (I didn't think to ask) so let me just say that among those attending were two familiar parole board members; at least 2 lawyers, at least 7 formerly incarcerated individuals; and representatives from the Prisoner Reentry Institute at John Jay, the Coalition for Parole Reform, the Osborne Assoc., ICARE, the American Bible Society, Successful Reentry, Inc. and 8 PAN members.
Past meetings of what is referred to as the John Jay group - although it has never been exclusively made up of John Jay students, teachers, or administration - have focused on several suggestions for parole reform, and we were asked to evaluate them and, if we felt they are compatible with our missions, to both sign on and include them in the agendas of our organizations. PAN has signed on, since we are already working in support of such reforms.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PAROLE REFORM IN NEW YORK STATE:
NYS has an opportunity to affect significant policy changes in the way the parole release and supervision system is administered in NY. Under the Pataki Administration, persons who are serving sentences for violent crimes have been routinely denied parole release solely on the basis of the underlying crime, without regard to their institutional record of rehabilitation or their potential for successful reintegration into the community. For these individuals, as well as their families, the resulting uncertainty about when, and under what circumstances, release may be expected to occur has bred despair and cynicism. In addition the policies are expensive. The per person cost of parole supervision is estimated to be one-tenth the cost of incarceration ($3,000 v. $30,000). The Pataki administration policies have resulted in a sharp decline in annual parole releases. Given that each person who is kept in prison, rather than being released on parole, costs the State $27,000, the annual cost to the State of these parole policies is substantial.
1. Restore predictability and rationality to parole release determinations.
A. Board of Parole release guidelines should be updated and modified to require the Board to give appropriate weight to the extent of an individual's rehabilitation and the lack of risk to public safety if the individual is released. In particular, the guidelines should reflect the research showing that persons who have served sentences for many categories of violent crimes - and particularly women - have low rates of recidivism. For example, according to available date, the average return rate for individuals released for murder (21.5%) was drastically lower than the overall average return rate (42.2 %) between 1985 and 2000. Moreover among the 2000 releases with murder convictions, only 3.6 % were returned for a new commitment. Most of the returns were for technical parole violations.
B. Merit-based criteria for Board of Parole membership and a screening panel should be established. Such criteria should include a demonstrated background in criminal justice issues. In addition, Board members should be provided with access to professional development programs in which information, current research, penological theory, and parole practices are presented and discussed.
2. Expand eligibility to programs that facilitate successful rehabilitation and release on parole.
Persons convicted of violent felony offenses are barred from participating in programs that would facilitate their successful, timely reintegration into the community. To remedy this, we suggest the following:
A. Persons convicted of violent felonies should be eligible to participate in work release programs. Work release can serve as an effective tool to demonstrate readiness to transition to the community. An individual who is successful on work release has established that he or she is able to be released into the community without being a threat to public safety.
B. The eligibility criteria for the issuance of a certificate of earned eligibility should be expanded to include all persons, regardless of the length of their minimum sentence. The NYS Correction Law provides that individuals who are scheduled to appear for parole release consideration and who have satisfactorily completed their assigned rehabilitative programs may be granted a Certificate of Earned Eligibility (NYS Corr.Law 805). The issuance of the Certificate creates a presumption of parole release. However, eligibility for the Certificate is limited to individuals whose minimum sentence is 8 years or less. This restriction excludes the majority of persons who are serving sentences for violent felonies. The law should be amended to allow all persons serving an indeterminate sentence of any length the opportunity to earn the certificate.
3. Eliminate unnecessary parole supervision and revocation.
Post-release resources are best used to protect the public from those individuals who pose an actual risk to the community. Under the Pataki administration, resources have instead been diverted to re-incarcerating individuals on technical violations and on precluding persons with a maximum sentence of life from ever obtaining discharge from post-release parole supervision. We recommend the following changes to address these problems:
A. Guidelines for technical violations should be established. The increase in the number of individuals returning to prison over the past decade on technical parole violations, i.e. violations that do not involve any criminal conduct, has been staggering. The unchecked exercise of discretion by parole officers is a significant concern in cases where parole violations are alleged. More specific, concrete, uniform guidelines for parole revocation - particularly for technical violations - should be established to help reduce the number of people being sent back to prison for minor violations.
B. The Division of parole should have the discretion to grant any suitable person a merit termination of parole supervision. There should be no exception for persons who were sentenced to a maximum sentence of life.
In addition, subcommittees will be forming to take part in a research project, a pilot service project, and a promotional project.
The research project will study the recidivism rates of 100 incarcerated men and women who have sentences of 15 years (for males) or 12 years (for women) with at least 2 years to go before possible release. In addition to gathering factual information on them, their stories will become part of the data, for it's apparent that personal stories have more of an impact than dry statistics, no matter who the audience. This project is already underway - 48 of 100 interviews have been conducted. They ask for referrals of people who meet the criteria.
The service project will select 3 men and 3 women from the above group and provide them with support as they prepare for their parole hearing. This support will consist of a lawyer, for the obvious reasons; a 'case manager' who will line up support on the outside; and a mentor who will help them develop a narrative, reflecting the amount of responsibility they accept for their crime, to present at their hearing.
The promotional project will develop strategies to counter the dominant media message that all incarcerated people are subhuman and incapable of transformation, This group will work to put another face on it, using formerly incarcerated people's stories as their primary tool.
Additional comments which I can't categorize were:
Politicians need to know our proposals have the support of a diverse population, not just current and formerly incarcerated people, their loved ones, and advocacy groups. For instance, crime victims would be a powerful voice to have speaking in support.
Parole board members have discretion and use it. The only way to change the kind of decisions that come out of the boards is to influence who gets appointed to the 8 vacancies that will be opening up. Suggestions were solicited. [None were forthcoming, although I mumbled to myself that anyone in the room had better credentials than those currently on the board. I would add here that the board needs to include more people of color and more women.]
It can be arranged for a group of model parolees and representatives of diverse organizations to meet with the parole board, to help dispel board members' prejudices about those who appear before them.
Certificates of Relief can be issued to persons with one felony conviction or less at the time of their Board. All it would take is for the new Commissioner to tell the Board to do it.
When we suggest parole changes, we must remind the public that no policy is perfect. Some people will re-offend, no matter what policy is followed. But good policies can reduce the percentages, as well as help us become a more forgiving society.
DOCs has said, off the record, that they want to expand the use of work release, and will go as far as they can within the law. But if we want them to be able to do more, WE must work to change the law. It must come from the public. Voters must prevail upon their representatives to expand eligibility for work release.
2. EAST HARLEM INCARCERATION STATISTICS
Convict alley in Harlem nabe
BY ROBERT F. MOORE
DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU
Posted Sunday, March 18th 2007, 4:00 AM
www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/03/18/2007-03-18_convict_alley_in_harlem_nabe-2.htm.
The seven blocks along Lexington Ave. from 119th to 126th Sts. [contain] the highest concentration of convicted criminals in the city. One in every 20 men in the area is sent to prison. More than half will return within four years of their arrest. They will be largely unemployed and addicted to drugs. Roughly a third of them were arrested for alleged drug crimes and seven were charged with murder or manslaughter.
It is among the poorest neighborhoods in the city, marked by high unemployment rates and a soaring number of diabetes cases. Taxpayers spent more than $3.5 million, in 2003, to keep criminals[sic} from the East Harlem neighborhood behind bars, according to the Brooklyn-based Justice Mapping Center [www.justicemapping.org]
"I would spend some of that money on housing, education, drug treatment and AIDS prevention," said a minister in the area.
The findings raise questions about how the city and state spend crime prevention and correction dollars. "If you had $1 million and 23 criminals on one block, what would you do?" asked Eric Cadora, director of the Justice Mapping Center. "Would you spend it all on sending them away for three or four years and have them come back? Or would you think about other ways of diversifying your investment?"
Correction Commissioner Martin Horn told the Daily News that the city, along with private organizations, should invest money in East Harlem, as well as other communities with high incarceration rates, to help break the cycle of poverty and crime.
City Councilwoman Melissa Mark Viverito, who represents the East Harlem area said prisoners' relatives routinely ask her for help. "They're concerned about them being able to get jobs when they get out," Mark Viverito said. She is hopeful Mayor Bloomberg's $150 million commitment to attack poverty in the city will have a tangible impact on her district. She also supports a recent City Council resolution to offer tax credits to employers who hire ex-cons.
"We have to find alternative ways to attack this problem," Mark Viverito said. "Otherwise, this will repeat itself from generation to generation."
rmoore@nydailynews.com
With Kerry Burke
3. FED3 THINK TANKS MET IN MARCH
NYC Group decides to meet monthly
Albany, Buffalo and NYC groups met to discuss ideas for the next Family Empowerment Day event. A total of 34 people attended, half had not attended FED2. In general the participants were excited about moving ahead to plan another event, or events. All watched the FED2 documentary and then took part in a brainstorming session. Summaries of each meeting have been forwarded to the FED3 Steering Committee, who will meet in April and report back to readers in May.
The NYC group will meet monthly to continue working on strategies for Family Empowerment. The next meeting is on April 17 from 6 -8pm at Fordham University in the Bronx. For details please call 518 253 7533, or email prisonaction@hotmail.com.
4. GEO MEETING CANCELED DUE TO “PROBLEMS” WITH GUEST’S REGISTRATION FORMS
The Governmental Education Organization (GEO) is a court mandated inmate organization at Mid-Orange C.F. Its focus includes, but is not limited to, the three branches of government, sentencing, and parole. Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants (C.U.R.E.) is an organization whose concern is reforming sentencing and parole practices through the Legislative and Executive process, and they are interested in becoming GEO’s outside sponsor.
GEO and C.U.R.E. scheduled a February 8, 2007 meeting. Six C.U.R.E. guests were expected. Three of those guests are from the International community, and three from the NY chapter who have previously participated in a GEO activity. DOCS volunteer registration forms were sent to C.U.R.E. and returned in a timely manner. In spite of full compliance by both GEO and C.U.R.E., GEO was informed that the meeting was canceled because the volunteers did not provide enough information. If this was a concern, additional information could have been provided via phone, FAX or e-mail. Moreover, DOCS volunteer forms require explicit information. Is DOCS saying their forms are inadequate?
It is curious why, after demanding that GEO acquire sponsorship in order to have guests at the monthly meetings, Mid Orange C.F. would stymie the effort with bureaucratic roadblocks. DOCS approves inmate organizations with the intention to “improve the attitude and personality, stimulate growth and understanding and responsibility, promote constructive utilization of leisure time, and provide additional educational and social experiences for inmates” (DOCS Dir. 4760). To deny these goals due to claims of insufficient information appears to be in opposition to their stated objectives. -- Santiago Ramirez
5. JALIL MUNTAQIM’S EXTRADITION ORDERED
On March 22, 2007, Jalil Muntaqim argued a habeas corpus objecting to a Governor's warrant that was served for his extradition to California where he is being charged with Murder and Conspiracy to Commit Murder in regards to the 1971 killing of a police officer in San Francisco. 7 other former members of the Black Liberation Army have also been charged and 6 of the men are already in custody in San Francisco. The Judge in Auburn denied Jalil's writ of habeas corpus ruling that he would be extradited in the next 30 days. He indicated that although Muntaqim may have defenses to the warrant such as the fact that he was already incarcerated at the time of the murder they were outside his jurisdiction to rule upon. Jalil argued his habeas corpus pro se. Jalil was also denied parole for the third time in 2006. He recently filed an Article 78. Cheryl Kates, Esq. has taken over defending his Article 78 due to his pending extradition
6. LIFE IN A FEMALE FACILITY
“B” has been imprisoned for almost 10 years for a fatality DWI. She is 67; all of her retirement “golden” years have been spent in prison. Is 10 years enough for the life of a young man? Probably not. Should she pay with the rest of her life? The victim’s family thinks so. Regardless of their wishes she will go home in 8 months. But that’s not why I share her story.
“B” has osteoarthritis, walks (difficultly) with a cane; both her vision and hearing are failing. Six weeks ago her sister, her only sibling, died. The weather is very hard for her since she is obligated to go to other buildings for her meals, medication, job assignments. She has had the same room for 6 years, the longest of anyone here. She has a wonderful network of support to help with her chores, her everyday responsibilities, friends who watch out for her. (Which relieves the staff of considerable responsibility, I might add.) When the heating system was renovated last year several rooms, including hers, were left out of the heat loop. (What genius engineer was responsible for that?) She never complained because she feared the consequences. But one person in one of the rooms did complain and now the feared consequences have been realized. “B” was relocated to one of the barn-like dorms down the hill (a trek for even the healthy) where she shares a cubicle with a 20 year old drug addict who just arrived. She is a deeply religious and spiritual woman who feels this is part of God’s plan. I, on the other hand, am incensed and outraged. As is everyone, including the staff, who hears about what happened. But no one does anything about it. When confronted, those in authority share their concern and then say they can’t do anything because “the system” said she had to be relocated. Who is running this show? Does anyone stop and look at the people that get shuffled around? Of course not. Most days I feel like just a game piece on the gameboard of something akin to “Correctional Pursuit” and the only beneficiaries are the policy makers who have no consideration for the lives they are playing with. -
Anon.
7. MERIT TIME
New bill introduced by Senator Velmanette Montgomery: S3578, 03/09/07, REFERRED TO CRIME VICTIMS, CRIME AND CORRECTION. SUMMARY: Provides for vesting of merit time allowance and release for prisoners with good behavior with certain limitations; provides commissioner of correctional services shall promulgate rules and regulations for merit time allowance to determine which inmates are good candidates for release. [Entire text of bill is posted elsewhere on this site]
Comments we’ve received about the bill:
For people serving life who have already gone to the parole board, this bill (S3578), if it became law, would have no practical value. The value in it though is that people serving life who have not yet gone to the parole board would see a parole board sooner, but would still be at the mercy of the parole board, and if parole trends don't change, people will simply go to more parole boards. Parole board practices have to change for any of this or other proposed legislation to mean anything, so people should be supporting efforts and legislation to change parole board practices. --Eric Waters
The bill also includes those with determinate sentences which the previous law does not cover. This is a big improvement even if it will have no practical value if they've already served what they would have needed to if this bill were in place. It will still mean a lot for those whom it will affect. --Lorraine Barde
8. MODERN DAY SLAVERY
The Thirteenth Amendment reads: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
A New York Times March 4, 2007 article titled ‘Inmates Will Replace Migrants in Colorado Fields’, by DAN FROSCH, readers learned that because Colorado has tough new immigration restrictions, migrant workers are fleeing to other states, and farmers are looking to hire prisoners to fill their places in the fields. Under the program farmers would pay a fee to the state, and the State would pay the inmates about 60 cents a day.
9. OTISVILLE BROADBAND PAROLE SUPPORT INITIATIVE
Many people responded to the FED2 Survey by asking about the Otisville Lifers Broadband Parole Support Initiative: What is it? How do I get involved?, they asked. Here is the response from Otisville:
Strategy:
Long termers: 1. identify suitable community-ready candidates; 2. assemble profile; one page, two sides. Photo optional. Side 1 presents the candidate's biography and commentary on his readiness to reenter society. Side 2 lists accomplishments and plans for life on the outside; 3. profile will provide the following info: the parole appearance date, the timeline for support efforts (letters of support, emails/faxes, phone calls - to Parole Board); 4. will provide addresses, phone #s, email addresses and fax numbers of the Parole Board.
Supporters: 1. Write letters, petitions, make phone calls and send emails to Parole board. 2. Make duplicates of support recommendation letters (one for candidate, one for facility parole officer, and one for Division of Parole in Albany); 3. encourage other people to do the same.
Accountability: 1. Each candidate is committed to positively represent our cause, by becoming an asset to society. 2. Supporters must commit to supporting a candidate for the duration, as nothing would be worse than a large initial show of support and then having it disappear; and to keep candidate updated on their efforts.
Two fold Goal: 1. Demonstrate overwhelming support for candidate's return to society 2. Serve notice: many on outside are watching.
Supporters can come from family; friends; defense attorney; judge; D.A./victim/victim's kin; Lifer's Group, their families and friends; Prison Action Network, Voices from PAN (internet); Building Bridges, by mail and on internet; On the Count, WBAI and website; Al Lewis Lives, WBAI and website; Fancy Broccoli, WVKR and website; Liberty Green Show, listeners; FUUSA congregation; Quaker Groups; Rye Presbyterian congregation; Other organizations, members, newsletter; Family Empowerment Day participants; and of course the "X" factor: Exponential Growth due to sites, shows, newsletters and word of mouth, that are unforeseeable. The trick is dissemination and interest.
This month’s candidate: Ramon Gonzalez, president of the Otisville Lifer’s Group. Oldest of 4 siblings, intelligent and independent youth, left home and attended Art and Design H.S., worked at Museum of Natural History and JFK airport, while living in private home in Queens. Married and became heavily in debt due to wife’s bout with cancer. This debt became the subject of endless arguments and he began to avoid his family, which led to negative associations and his first crime, a robbery in which a man lost his life. For his role, Ramon was given 12.5 to 25. He is deeply remorseful and accepts full responsibility for the loss of his victim’s life. He has consistently sought to better himself and those around him, in an attempt to redeem himself and earn the right to rejoin society. For more information, contact Mr. Gonzalez 92A7663, Otisville C.F., PO Box 8, Otisville NY, 10963.
10. PRISON CLOSURE BACKLASH
N.Y. Republicans want no part of prison closure panel
By Yancey Roy
Journal Albany bureau
[URL:http://www.nyjournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070315/NEWS05/703150390/1035]
March 13, 2007
ALBANY Senate Republicans said Tuesday they won't join an effort to create a committee to propose prison closures, saying it is up to Gov. Eliot Spitzer to advance the idea himself.
Spitzer has called for a new commission to study whether the state should close some prisons and youth detention facilities. Inmate population has dipped about 7,000 over the last seven years, to roughly 63,000 currently. Last year, the Legislature created a panel that eventually produced a plan to close or merge some underused hospitals, an initiative that received bipartisan, if grudging, support.
But the Republican-run Senate omitted the prison proposal from a package of budget bills it passed Tuesday. The Democrat-led Assembly included it in its budget.
Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said Spitzer would have to shoulder the load with his colleagues this time.
"That is an executive initiative," said Bruno, R-Brunswick, Rensselaer County, "and if he wants to do it, he ought to set (the panel) up and name the prisons he wants closed. ... We're leaving it up to him."
Asked why Republicans could support a hospital-closing commission but not one to shutter or change the purpose of penitentiaries, Bruno said those were two different issues. One, hospitals, dealt with "public institutions" while the other, prisons, dealt with state-run facilities, he contended.
Left unsaid, perhaps, is Bruno's political calculus. Senate Republicans are dominated by upstate and Hudson Valley members and most of the prisons and detention centers are situated upstate "providing some of the best paying jobs in some areas.
But one upstate senator with two prisons in his district said perhaps it was Spitzer who was trying to "politically insulate" himself from criticism.
"A governor doesn't have the power to close hospitals. He does have the power to close prisons," said Sen. George Winner, R-Elmira. "He wants to change the process to take some of the heat off himself."
Similar to Bruno, Winner said Spitzer should make closure recommendations himself.
Spitzer refrained from criticizing the Republicans on this topic ,unlike more contentious budget issues such as health care. But he said he won't necessarily drop the issue.
"There are a number of things that were not in (the Senate's) budget" package, Spitzer said. "We'll work with them. I think they understand it's an important issue. We'll move forward on it. We will just have to work it out."
Reach Yancey Roy at yroy@gannett.com
11. PRISON RADIO
Al Lewis Lives, hosted by Karen Lewis, broadcasts on Saturdays from noon to 1:30 pm on WBAI, 99.5 FM, NYC.
The Fancy Broccoli Show airs on WVKR, 91.3FM, Poughkeepsie NY on somewhat alternate Sundays from 3 - 6 pm, Eastern Time. WVKR streams online - go to WVKR.org and click on (or near) the word 'LISTEN'.
Democracy Now!, with Amy Goodman, also airs on WBAI - from 8AM-9AM weekdays, on WVKR every weekday from 5PM-6PM, and on WRPI Troy, 91.5 FM from 9AM-10AM. [For an excellent program on prison, listen to the Friday 3/30/07 program archived at www.DemocracyNow.org]
Voices from the Prison Action Network is taking a break for a few weeks. The program will be changing it’s broadcast location to the internet, where anyone with a computer can listen to any program at any time, from anywhere in the world. We'll let you know the details in the May issue.
If you don’t have a computer we encourage you to use your public library to access the internet for all of these programs. Any readers who can offer low cost computers and a tutorial in using email and the internet is invited to offer your services in these pages. We think it is becoming urgent that people have access to the largest independent source of news available. Invest in a computer, and stop watching TV!
12. REQUIRED PROGRAMS: WHO BENEFITS?
“Required” programs are programs that have to be taken by a prisoner in order to satisfy their needs for rehabilitation. CASAT, RSAT, ART, Phase I, II, III, etc. These programs are meant to earn “short term - non violent offenders” merit time and early release at the parole board. Civilian staff are paid to facilitate these programs. In my 18 years in prison I have yet to see one civilian facilitate these programs. These programs are always facilitated by prisoners, long-term violent offenders. In some cases a prisoner has been the facilitator for one or more of these programs for 10 years; years in which all of the non-violent short term offenders that have graduated from the program under the long termer’s instruction have been released by the parole board simply because they satisfactorily completed the program, while time and again, when the instructors/facilitators of these programs appear before the parole board, they are denied parole because their “release is incompatible with the safety and welfare of society “, or their “release will deprecate the seriousness of the offense as to undermine respect for the law”, etc., etc. In other words, these men are not ready to return to society while all of the men that have taken instruction from them over the years are released. I know a man who spent years facilitating programs who finally got tired of getting hit at the parole board time and time again while his students were released, so he requested a program change. His spirit was broken. He was not allowed to change his program. He received a letter from the Dep. Supt. of Programs in the facility which said the facility needed him to continue to facilitate the program. Some of us wonder if these men are denied parole because to release them would not be in the best interest of society, as the parole decisions claim, or are they denied parole because releasing them is not in the best interest of the DOCS and the civilians who are paid to facilitate programs?
To many of us who have not only spent many years changing our own lives, but also helping others change theirs, this is a true Horror Story. Every time we appear before the parole Board and are denied parole once again, it kills another little piece of us. Luckily there are a lot of good men in here that rally around a fallen soldier who is once again wounded by the parole board and they breathe life back into him and help him get his mind, heart and soul ready to go to war for another 24 months, but how long can this go on before our soldiers can’t fight to stay positive anymore? -- Pedro Alicea
13. THE SQUARE FETTER © Copyright by James E. Morse 2005. This is part 3 in the serialization.
[A hand crafted, illustrated edition of the book is available for $4 through Prison Action Network]
Strange things proliferate in the vacuum of time
THE SQUARE FETTER
Months after Jones’ strange day in court, he still cringed from the tap, tap rapping of the judge’s time-sick gavel; the tap, tap sounding that foretold Jones’ sentence to the living death; the crazed tapping that accompanied his transport to the nonpenitential congregate fetter—the ruinous social organism that is called the “Beast” by the captives who languish there.
Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.
Once deposited in the institution, Jones was left in the charge of a prison guard wearing a blue rumpled uniform and black leather gloves. The nameplate read Momus. The guard, blond hair severely shorn into a law enforcement crew cut, talked around a plug of oozing tobacco. Now and then, he spat brown slime into a clear plastic cup. Holding the portable spittoon like a microphone, Momus delivered a red-faced welcoming address—the gist of which was that stupid behavior resulted in corporeal punishment. “END OF STORY!” Momus blurted.
Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.
“We’ll kick that hip-hop ass”—hip-hop ass, hip-hop ass, the threat re-echoed. When Momus abruptly snatched his sacred pole from the metal ring on his belt, Jones flinched. Grinning maliciously, the guard lifted the wooden baton and signaled Jones to proceed in the direction of the square fetter.
An electric gate whirred open and Jones, with Momus at his heels, slinked through. He ascended a flight of metal stairs, passed through another whirring gate, then shuffled the length of the musty building called A Block. The shoes that they gave him made a crunching noise; the crunch-crunch played counterpoint to the tap, tap refrain of the time-sick gavel. Jones’ former gait—the freewheeling swagger, with sweeping arm motions—had long since collapsed into a listless shamble; arms pinioned tightly to his sides. The dark eyes—once points of flashing defiance—were now subdued, timid. [To be continued]
14. SUPPORT MEETINGS
Albany: PFNY meeting at 7:00 pm every Monday at the Women’s Bldg, 79 Central Avenue. Please call ahead: Alison 518 453 6659
Buffalo: Groups for men and women meet separately on Thursdays, from 5:30-6:30pm at GROUP Ministries, Inc., 1333 Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo. These programs are FREE and confidential. For more information, call 716-539-1844.
North Babylon LI: Prison Families Anonymous meets on the 2nd and 4th Wed of each month at 7:30 pm at the Babylon Town Hall Annex. You are welcome if you have a family member in prison. For more info you may call Barbara: Ph: 631-630-9118, Cell: 631-943-0441
Poughkeepsie: PFNY Support Group Room 306 of the Main Building of Family Partnership at 29 North Hamilton St. Poughkeepsie, NY. Meetings will be held on the 2nd and 4th Mondays of the month at 7pm. The Citizens for Restorative Justice meet the first Monday of the month, 6:30 to 8:00PM. The location changes so call ahead of time, 845-464-4736.
Schenectady: PFNY meeting at 7pm on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of every month at First United Methodist Church - 603 State Street - entrance on Chapel Street - behind MVP Building. Jeanette: 518 280 0354 anytime after 6pm.
15. TELEPHONE JUSTICE CAMPAIGN
TAKE ACTION - Tell Sen. Nozzolio to move the Family Connections bill out of Committee
We've come close the past two years in passing the Family Connections bill, but this is the year we're going to make it happen. Senator Nozzolio must follow the leadership of Governor Spitzer and the New York State Assembly and move the Family Connections bill (S.705, which provides inmates with telephone services utilizing a debit card system and reasonable collect call system rates) out of Committee immediately. Write or call him today:
Michael F. Nozzolio, Chairman, Senate Crime Victims, Crime and Correction Committee, Room 409, Legislative Office Building, Albany, NY 12247, (518)455-2366, Fax (518)426-6953
CONTRACT UPDATE - What to expect on April 1, 2007
Spitzer's decision to end the state commission provision of the contract will take effect on April 1, 2007. Because there are so many problems with the contract, Spitzer's administration has decided to give MCI/Verizon a one-year extension but with the 50% rate reduction. He and his staff are currently researching prison telephone contracts, and they will draft a new Request for Proposal in late summer 2007 for a completely new contract to go into effect in 2008.
16. TRANSPORTATION TO PRISONS
From Albany/Troy: The NEST prison shuttle schedule: Mt. McGregor, Washington, and Great Meadow Facilities on Sat, Apr 7 ($30 adults, $20 children), and the Coxsackie, Greene, and Hudson Correctional Facilities on Sat, Apr 14, and SUN, Apr 29 ($15 adults and $10 children), leaving Oakwood Ave Presbyt. Church parking lot, Troy at 7 AM, and Albany Greyhound Bus station at 7:15. Trip to the Utica Hub (Midstate, Marcy, Mohawk, Oneida) Sat, Apr 21 leaving shortly after 5 AM ($40 adults, $25 children). Call for reservations and information: Linda O'Malley 518- 273-5199.
From the Capital District:
Rides are offered by volunteers of the First Unitarian Universalist Society’s Justice Committee on weekdays only. Please contact us at 518 253-7533 if you need a ride.
17. WHAT’S HAPPENING AROUND NEW YORK STATE
Buffalo Area:
Prisoners Are People Too! is a justice advocacy program that meets on selected Mondays in Buffalo at the Pratt-Willert Community Center, 422 Pratt Street from 6:30-8:30pm. Each meeting features a documentary film, related to some prison issue, and one or more guest speakers who address that issue. At its March 23 meeting on “parole reform,” PRP2! screened Melis Birder’s “Family Empowerment Day 2,” and the speaker was Frank Williams, an ordained minister and case manager for Operation H.O.P.E., Inc., who spent 28 years in prison. Also present were Eugenio Russi, a Regional Director of the NYS Division of Parole and George Alexander, the new Chairmen of the Parole Board. At its next meeting on Monday, April 23, PRP2! will screen “Legacy of Torture: The War Against the Black Liberation Movement” and the speaker will be Mrs. Eva M. Doyle, educator and journalist, who will share her thoughts on Criminalizing a Race by Charshee McIntyre. Prisoners Are People Too! will meet the following month on May 21. Film and guest speaker(s) TBA.
Ithaca Area:
Community Advisory Board (CAB) to MacCormick Maximum Security Center was organized by Ithaca Drug Treatment Court Judge Marjorie Olds and Lynn Andersen, Director of the Alternatives Library at Cornell Univ., who insisted on having a citizen presence connected to this nearby (Caroline, NY---17 miles) facility which has a capacity for 52 male residents, 14 – 20 years old. The CAB meets monthly, alternating between an off-campus location and at MacCormick. The meetings at Mac are attended by our Board members (usually about 10 – 12 show up) as well as the Mac administration, i.e., the director, assistant director, and volunteer coordinator---and, at times, some honor residents. The alternate off-campus mtgs. usually have 6 – 10 Board members. We volunteer and provide tutoring and a wide range of programs and courses, including for high school diplomas, GED, and college credit, as well as for personal growth and such special experiences as with pets, gardening, writing and newsletter, and music (including cello!)--- all of which the administration welcomes and makes good use of. We also attend Mac functions and, in general, see as part of our contribution, providing interested, caring contact for the residents with actual citizens and the outside world. We have connections with both Ithaca College and Cornell and, thus, college students are up there every week for one program or another. -- Monty Berman CAB co-chair Ithaca, NY. [Membership is open, contact Monty at mberman116@hotmail.com, Monty Berman, Empire State College, 118 N. Tioga St., Ithaca, NY 14850-4354, 607 272-1809]
Metropolitan NYC:
Manhattan: The Coalition for Parole Restoration (CPR) met on 3/26/07 at 6PM to discuss their expansion plans relating to a new Website, renting office space, hiring Summer Youth Interns, as well as their upcoming "Parole Workshop" on Saturday (3/31) in Poughkeepsie, NY. Those applying for the Summer Youth Internship must have a presently or formerly incarcerated parent and be between the ages of 14-18 yrs. The work week will be Monday -Thursday, 5 hours a day. The pay will be $10.00 an hour. Preference will be given to the children of current members of CPR. Complete details will appear in the next issue of their newsletter, The Deuce Club.
NEXT MEETING: April 16th from 6-8PM at 520 8th Ave., (btwn 36/37th Streets, on the 22nd Flr., Travel Suggestions: "A" or "D" Train to 34th Street....(Families/Public are invited)
North Babylon: Prison Families Anonymous met on March 28. The following report was filed by someone attending for the first time:
Parole support for my husband brings me to rooms I don't always make time for in between work and visits upstate. Tonight I met a variety of people representing a wide gamut of prison nightmares. It was friendly open and informational. Where else can you go for such myriad of raw emotion? Brokenhearted mothers, fathers' previous conception of their strength visibly shattered because here in the life of the NYS prison system we are all trampled on without mercy. White, black, hispanic and 'other' now become the ‘green race’ that faces a similar shameful indifference.
I heard numbers like 3-6, flat 15, and 10 months to go. I saw people writhing in new pain, old pain, twisted warped pain; good people spun into the world of the dark evil beast known as 'docs'; and in my own pain a new meaning of 'life' is born. I secretly wished for the pain of a flat 15 or 20, for today 'life' at the end of your sentence might as well say 'death' to the board of parole who decides with no soul.
The parole system was based on the belief that persons can be rehabilitated. Lifers have the lowest recidivism rate. Often they're old and dying as they wait on their parole to come through. All the evil 'corrections' wants to dish out cannot change right from wrong. Their denials cannot kill the love and dedication of we the people that await the arrival of justice. ---Nellie, Lifer Wife.
[Building Bridges would like to know what other things are happening in NYS.]
18. WORK RELEASE UPDATE
By now you may have heard the news: Gov Spitzer issued an executive order (#9) which not only does not grant work release to violent offenders but has actually banned more categories than before.
Key phrases from the order:
WHEREAS, there are certain classes of inmates who have committed crimes of particular violence, depravity or victimization, and who are less likely to succeed in temporary release programs; and
WHEREAS, the temporary release of such inmates likely would cause alarm and concern in the surrounding community, and thereby would diminish the acceptance of temporary release programs generally; [I, Gov Eliot Spitzer] do hereby order the Commissioner of the Department of Correctional Services to promulgate, modify, adopt, or rescind any rules, regulations, directives, policies or procedures as may be necessary to prevent the future transfer of any inmate to any program of temporary release, when the inmate is convicted of any of the following crimes, or is convicted of an attempt or a conspiracy to commit any of the following crimes:
(1) an act of terrorism as defined in Article 490 of the Penal Law;
(2) a homicide offense as defined in Article 125 of the Penal Law;
(3) a sex offense as defined in Article 130 of the Penal Law;
(4) an offense involving the sexual performance of a child as defined in Article 263 of the Penal Law;
(5) incest as defined in Article 255 of the Penal Law; or
(6) a violent felony offense that includes as an element: (i) being armed with, the use of, the threatened use of, or the possession with the intent to use unlawfully against another of, a deadly weapon or a dangerous instrument; or (ii) the infliction of serious physical injury.
While some of the above categories may seem acceptable to some, #6 certainly is in opposition to our request for inclusion of reformed violent felons in work release eligibility. Therefore we suggest continuing to gather signatures on the petition circulated in Building Bridges. You’ve sent 232 signatures so far; keep them coming! And we can also urge people to write a letter to Gov Spitzer, State Capitol, Albany NY 12224, stating their objections to executive order #9. He needs to hear how many people do NOT support this move, and our reasons. It is our suggestion that the tone of our letters NOT be accusatory, but polite and educational.
Some good points were made by Bryce Rudert who sent the following irate response:
If we have another "steward of the people" in this state who refuses to consider the social science data when making an executive decision (but instead panders to the uneducated illogic of uninformed public sentiment) we will have to REALLY educate the public as to WHY 50 cents of every tax dollar goes to 70 prisons in upstate NY while the remaining 50 is supposed to cover health, education, highways, infrastructure and every other damn thing (is it any wonder why our infirm are neglected, our kids are ignorant, and our roadways have potholes that swallow cars if you manage to swerve out of the way of the falling bridges--while men and women in their sixties and seventies are deemed too "dangerous" for society-at-large due to things they did in their teens and twenties?? Maybe if we let out a handful of them we could pave a road or two, shore up a bridge, educate a cohort of high school kids--and even make it possible for old folks to buy their pharmaceuticals in NY instead of Canada!!
All questions regarding anything posted at this blogspot may be sent to
PAN
March did not bring much in the way of encouraging news. The Parole Board seems to be releasing less people than ever; Governor Spitzer issued two executive orders which do not sit well with most of us; Jalil Montaqim is about to be extradited to CA [see Article 5]; and the bad news keeps on coming. But we will not give up! In the words of Vaclav Havel, “Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense no matter how it turns out.” And there are positive signs. The Think Tank meetings attracted energetic and positive people, ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work on producing Family Empowerment Day3. Our telephone bills are about to become lower, or so we’ve been led to expect. Now it’s April and we hope to find pleasure in this season of rebirth, as the flowers sprout up, and the drab landscape turns to color! May we find joy in the little things...
ARTICLES:
1. AD HOC PAROLE REFORM GROUP - practitioners, policy makers, people who have served long prison sentences, and other stakeholders met to discuss possible partnerships in promoting recommendations (included in the article) for parole reform in NYS.
2. EAST HARLEM INCARCERATION STATISTICS - one in every twenty men living on Lexington Ave between 119th St and 126th St will be sent to prison.
3. FED3 THINK TANKS MET IN MARCH - Feedback will guide the decisions of the Steering Committee as they plan the next step in the Family Empowerment Movement. NYC group decided to meet again on April 17, continuing on a monthly basis.
4. GEO MEETING CANCELED DUE TO “PROBLEMS” WITH GUEST’S REGISTRATION FORMS - GEO denied access to the goals stated in DOCS Dir. 4760, allegedly for insufficient information from the invited C.U.R.E. guests.
5. JALIL MUNTAQIM EXTRADITION ORDERED - Judge denies Jalil's writ of habeas corpus, and indicated that although Muntaqim may have defenses to the warrant such as the fact that he was already incarcerated at the time of the murder, they were outside his jurisdiction to rule upon.
6. LIFE IN A FEMALE FACILITY - “Most days I feel like just a game piece on the gameboard of something akin to “Correctional Pursuit” and the only beneficiaries are the policy makers who have no consideration for the lives they are playing with.”..
7. MERIT TIME --Feedback on the new bill introduced by Sen Montgomery is not all positive.
8. MODERN DAY SLAVERY - Incarcerated people are being used to replace migrant farm workers, at .60 a day.
9. OTISVILLE BROADBAND PAROLE SUPPORT INITIATIVE - The answers to your questions: Strategies, Accountability, and Goals; plus this month’s candidate, Ramon Gonzalez.
10. PRISON CLOSURE BACKLASH - Republicans say they won’t join effort to create a committee to propose prison closures, saying it is up to Spitzer to advance the idea himself.
11. PRISON RADIO - Independent radio productions are your only place to hear alternatives to the mainstream media propaganda
12. REQUIRED PROGRAMS: WHO BENEFITS? - Often facilitated by long termers who watch as their short term students are released while they themselves are being hit by the parole board over and over.
13. THE SQUARE FETTER - Part 3 in a serialized vignette. “Months after Jones’ strange day in court, he still . cringed from the tap, tap rapping of the judge’s time-sick gavel.”
14. SUPPORT MEETINGS - Albany, Buffalo, Poughkeepsie, Schenectady and NYC all have meetings for people dealing with the incarceration of loved ones.
15. TELEPHONE JUSTICE CAMPAIGN - Actions to take, and what to expect on April 1.
16. TRANSPORTATION TO PRISONS - from the Capitol District, Albany-Troy, and on the Ride Board
17. WHAT’S HAPPENING AROUND NEW YORK STATE - Encouraging and inspiring reports from Ithaca’s CAB, Buffalo’s PRP2!, NYC’s CPR, and No. Babylon’s PFA: “White, black, hispanic and 'other' now become the ‘green race’ that faces a similar shameful indifference.
18. WORK RELEASE UPDATE - Readers have sent 14 pages of Work Release petitions with 232 signatures to Gov. Spitzer so far; still he issued Executive Order #9, cutting back on eligibility for work release.
1. AD HOC PAROLE REFORM GROUP
On Wednesday, March 28, an ad hoc parole reform group, composed of practitioners, policy makers, people who have served long prison sentences, and other stakeholders met to discuss possible partnerships aimed at building momentum around parole reform issues in NYS. I don't have permission to reveal their names (I didn't think to ask) so let me just say that among those attending were two familiar parole board members; at least 2 lawyers, at least 7 formerly incarcerated individuals; and representatives from the Prisoner Reentry Institute at John Jay, the Coalition for Parole Reform, the Osborne Assoc., ICARE, the American Bible Society, Successful Reentry, Inc. and 8 PAN members.
Past meetings of what is referred to as the John Jay group - although it has never been exclusively made up of John Jay students, teachers, or administration - have focused on several suggestions for parole reform, and we were asked to evaluate them and, if we felt they are compatible with our missions, to both sign on and include them in the agendas of our organizations. PAN has signed on, since we are already working in support of such reforms.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PAROLE REFORM IN NEW YORK STATE:
NYS has an opportunity to affect significant policy changes in the way the parole release and supervision system is administered in NY. Under the Pataki Administration, persons who are serving sentences for violent crimes have been routinely denied parole release solely on the basis of the underlying crime, without regard to their institutional record of rehabilitation or their potential for successful reintegration into the community. For these individuals, as well as their families, the resulting uncertainty about when, and under what circumstances, release may be expected to occur has bred despair and cynicism. In addition the policies are expensive. The per person cost of parole supervision is estimated to be one-tenth the cost of incarceration ($3,000 v. $30,000). The Pataki administration policies have resulted in a sharp decline in annual parole releases. Given that each person who is kept in prison, rather than being released on parole, costs the State $27,000, the annual cost to the State of these parole policies is substantial.
1. Restore predictability and rationality to parole release determinations.
A. Board of Parole release guidelines should be updated and modified to require the Board to give appropriate weight to the extent of an individual's rehabilitation and the lack of risk to public safety if the individual is released. In particular, the guidelines should reflect the research showing that persons who have served sentences for many categories of violent crimes - and particularly women - have low rates of recidivism. For example, according to available date, the average return rate for individuals released for murder (21.5%) was drastically lower than the overall average return rate (42.2 %) between 1985 and 2000. Moreover among the 2000 releases with murder convictions, only 3.6 % were returned for a new commitment. Most of the returns were for technical parole violations.
B. Merit-based criteria for Board of Parole membership and a screening panel should be established. Such criteria should include a demonstrated background in criminal justice issues. In addition, Board members should be provided with access to professional development programs in which information, current research, penological theory, and parole practices are presented and discussed.
2. Expand eligibility to programs that facilitate successful rehabilitation and release on parole.
Persons convicted of violent felony offenses are barred from participating in programs that would facilitate their successful, timely reintegration into the community. To remedy this, we suggest the following:
A. Persons convicted of violent felonies should be eligible to participate in work release programs. Work release can serve as an effective tool to demonstrate readiness to transition to the community. An individual who is successful on work release has established that he or she is able to be released into the community without being a threat to public safety.
B. The eligibility criteria for the issuance of a certificate of earned eligibility should be expanded to include all persons, regardless of the length of their minimum sentence. The NYS Correction Law provides that individuals who are scheduled to appear for parole release consideration and who have satisfactorily completed their assigned rehabilitative programs may be granted a Certificate of Earned Eligibility (NYS Corr.Law 805). The issuance of the Certificate creates a presumption of parole release. However, eligibility for the Certificate is limited to individuals whose minimum sentence is 8 years or less. This restriction excludes the majority of persons who are serving sentences for violent felonies. The law should be amended to allow all persons serving an indeterminate sentence of any length the opportunity to earn the certificate.
3. Eliminate unnecessary parole supervision and revocation.
Post-release resources are best used to protect the public from those individuals who pose an actual risk to the community. Under the Pataki administration, resources have instead been diverted to re-incarcerating individuals on technical violations and on precluding persons with a maximum sentence of life from ever obtaining discharge from post-release parole supervision. We recommend the following changes to address these problems:
A. Guidelines for technical violations should be established. The increase in the number of individuals returning to prison over the past decade on technical parole violations, i.e. violations that do not involve any criminal conduct, has been staggering. The unchecked exercise of discretion by parole officers is a significant concern in cases where parole violations are alleged. More specific, concrete, uniform guidelines for parole revocation - particularly for technical violations - should be established to help reduce the number of people being sent back to prison for minor violations.
B. The Division of parole should have the discretion to grant any suitable person a merit termination of parole supervision. There should be no exception for persons who were sentenced to a maximum sentence of life.
In addition, subcommittees will be forming to take part in a research project, a pilot service project, and a promotional project.
The research project will study the recidivism rates of 100 incarcerated men and women who have sentences of 15 years (for males) or 12 years (for women) with at least 2 years to go before possible release. In addition to gathering factual information on them, their stories will become part of the data, for it's apparent that personal stories have more of an impact than dry statistics, no matter who the audience. This project is already underway - 48 of 100 interviews have been conducted. They ask for referrals of people who meet the criteria.
The service project will select 3 men and 3 women from the above group and provide them with support as they prepare for their parole hearing. This support will consist of a lawyer, for the obvious reasons; a 'case manager' who will line up support on the outside; and a mentor who will help them develop a narrative, reflecting the amount of responsibility they accept for their crime, to present at their hearing.
The promotional project will develop strategies to counter the dominant media message that all incarcerated people are subhuman and incapable of transformation, This group will work to put another face on it, using formerly incarcerated people's stories as their primary tool.
Additional comments which I can't categorize were:
Politicians need to know our proposals have the support of a diverse population, not just current and formerly incarcerated people, their loved ones, and advocacy groups. For instance, crime victims would be a powerful voice to have speaking in support.
Parole board members have discretion and use it. The only way to change the kind of decisions that come out of the boards is to influence who gets appointed to the 8 vacancies that will be opening up. Suggestions were solicited. [None were forthcoming, although I mumbled to myself that anyone in the room had better credentials than those currently on the board. I would add here that the board needs to include more people of color and more women.]
It can be arranged for a group of model parolees and representatives of diverse organizations to meet with the parole board, to help dispel board members' prejudices about those who appear before them.
Certificates of Relief can be issued to persons with one felony conviction or less at the time of their Board. All it would take is for the new Commissioner to tell the Board to do it.
When we suggest parole changes, we must remind the public that no policy is perfect. Some people will re-offend, no matter what policy is followed. But good policies can reduce the percentages, as well as help us become a more forgiving society.
DOCs has said, off the record, that they want to expand the use of work release, and will go as far as they can within the law. But if we want them to be able to do more, WE must work to change the law. It must come from the public. Voters must prevail upon their representatives to expand eligibility for work release.
2. EAST HARLEM INCARCERATION STATISTICS
Convict alley in Harlem nabe
BY ROBERT F. MOORE
DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU
Posted Sunday, March 18th 2007, 4:00 AM
www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/03/18/2007-03-18_convict_alley_in_harlem_nabe-2.htm.
The seven blocks along Lexington Ave. from 119th to 126th Sts. [contain] the highest concentration of convicted criminals in the city. One in every 20 men in the area is sent to prison. More than half will return within four years of their arrest. They will be largely unemployed and addicted to drugs. Roughly a third of them were arrested for alleged drug crimes and seven were charged with murder or manslaughter.
It is among the poorest neighborhoods in the city, marked by high unemployment rates and a soaring number of diabetes cases. Taxpayers spent more than $3.5 million, in 2003, to keep criminals[sic} from the East Harlem neighborhood behind bars, according to the Brooklyn-based Justice Mapping Center [www.justicemapping.org]
"I would spend some of that money on housing, education, drug treatment and AIDS prevention," said a minister in the area.
The findings raise questions about how the city and state spend crime prevention and correction dollars. "If you had $1 million and 23 criminals on one block, what would you do?" asked Eric Cadora, director of the Justice Mapping Center. "Would you spend it all on sending them away for three or four years and have them come back? Or would you think about other ways of diversifying your investment?"
Correction Commissioner Martin Horn told the Daily News that the city, along with private organizations, should invest money in East Harlem, as well as other communities with high incarceration rates, to help break the cycle of poverty and crime.
City Councilwoman Melissa Mark Viverito, who represents the East Harlem area said prisoners' relatives routinely ask her for help. "They're concerned about them being able to get jobs when they get out," Mark Viverito said. She is hopeful Mayor Bloomberg's $150 million commitment to attack poverty in the city will have a tangible impact on her district. She also supports a recent City Council resolution to offer tax credits to employers who hire ex-cons.
"We have to find alternative ways to attack this problem," Mark Viverito said. "Otherwise, this will repeat itself from generation to generation."
rmoore@nydailynews.com
With Kerry Burke
3. FED3 THINK TANKS MET IN MARCH
NYC Group decides to meet monthly
Albany, Buffalo and NYC groups met to discuss ideas for the next Family Empowerment Day event. A total of 34 people attended, half had not attended FED2. In general the participants were excited about moving ahead to plan another event, or events. All watched the FED2 documentary and then took part in a brainstorming session. Summaries of each meeting have been forwarded to the FED3 Steering Committee, who will meet in April and report back to readers in May.
The NYC group will meet monthly to continue working on strategies for Family Empowerment. The next meeting is on April 17 from 6 -8pm at Fordham University in the Bronx. For details please call 518 253 7533, or email prisonaction@hotmail.com.
4. GEO MEETING CANCELED DUE TO “PROBLEMS” WITH GUEST’S REGISTRATION FORMS
The Governmental Education Organization (GEO) is a court mandated inmate organization at Mid-Orange C.F. Its focus includes, but is not limited to, the three branches of government, sentencing, and parole. Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants (C.U.R.E.) is an organization whose concern is reforming sentencing and parole practices through the Legislative and Executive process, and they are interested in becoming GEO’s outside sponsor.
GEO and C.U.R.E. scheduled a February 8, 2007 meeting. Six C.U.R.E. guests were expected. Three of those guests are from the International community, and three from the NY chapter who have previously participated in a GEO activity. DOCS volunteer registration forms were sent to C.U.R.E. and returned in a timely manner. In spite of full compliance by both GEO and C.U.R.E., GEO was informed that the meeting was canceled because the volunteers did not provide enough information. If this was a concern, additional information could have been provided via phone, FAX or e-mail. Moreover, DOCS volunteer forms require explicit information. Is DOCS saying their forms are inadequate?
It is curious why, after demanding that GEO acquire sponsorship in order to have guests at the monthly meetings, Mid Orange C.F. would stymie the effort with bureaucratic roadblocks. DOCS approves inmate organizations with the intention to “improve the attitude and personality, stimulate growth and understanding and responsibility, promote constructive utilization of leisure time, and provide additional educational and social experiences for inmates” (DOCS Dir. 4760). To deny these goals due to claims of insufficient information appears to be in opposition to their stated objectives. -- Santiago Ramirez
5. JALIL MUNTAQIM’S EXTRADITION ORDERED
On March 22, 2007, Jalil Muntaqim argued a habeas corpus objecting to a Governor's warrant that was served for his extradition to California where he is being charged with Murder and Conspiracy to Commit Murder in regards to the 1971 killing of a police officer in San Francisco. 7 other former members of the Black Liberation Army have also been charged and 6 of the men are already in custody in San Francisco. The Judge in Auburn denied Jalil's writ of habeas corpus ruling that he would be extradited in the next 30 days. He indicated that although Muntaqim may have defenses to the warrant such as the fact that he was already incarcerated at the time of the murder they were outside his jurisdiction to rule upon. Jalil argued his habeas corpus pro se. Jalil was also denied parole for the third time in 2006. He recently filed an Article 78. Cheryl Kates, Esq. has taken over defending his Article 78 due to his pending extradition
6. LIFE IN A FEMALE FACILITY
“B” has been imprisoned for almost 10 years for a fatality DWI. She is 67; all of her retirement “golden” years have been spent in prison. Is 10 years enough for the life of a young man? Probably not. Should she pay with the rest of her life? The victim’s family thinks so. Regardless of their wishes she will go home in 8 months. But that’s not why I share her story.
“B” has osteoarthritis, walks (difficultly) with a cane; both her vision and hearing are failing. Six weeks ago her sister, her only sibling, died. The weather is very hard for her since she is obligated to go to other buildings for her meals, medication, job assignments. She has had the same room for 6 years, the longest of anyone here. She has a wonderful network of support to help with her chores, her everyday responsibilities, friends who watch out for her. (Which relieves the staff of considerable responsibility, I might add.) When the heating system was renovated last year several rooms, including hers, were left out of the heat loop. (What genius engineer was responsible for that?) She never complained because she feared the consequences. But one person in one of the rooms did complain and now the feared consequences have been realized. “B” was relocated to one of the barn-like dorms down the hill (a trek for even the healthy) where she shares a cubicle with a 20 year old drug addict who just arrived. She is a deeply religious and spiritual woman who feels this is part of God’s plan. I, on the other hand, am incensed and outraged. As is everyone, including the staff, who hears about what happened. But no one does anything about it. When confronted, those in authority share their concern and then say they can’t do anything because “the system” said she had to be relocated. Who is running this show? Does anyone stop and look at the people that get shuffled around? Of course not. Most days I feel like just a game piece on the gameboard of something akin to “Correctional Pursuit” and the only beneficiaries are the policy makers who have no consideration for the lives they are playing with. -
Anon.
7. MERIT TIME
New bill introduced by Senator Velmanette Montgomery: S3578, 03/09/07, REFERRED TO CRIME VICTIMS, CRIME AND CORRECTION. SUMMARY: Provides for vesting of merit time allowance and release for prisoners with good behavior with certain limitations; provides commissioner of correctional services shall promulgate rules and regulations for merit time allowance to determine which inmates are good candidates for release. [Entire text of bill is posted elsewhere on this site]
Comments we’ve received about the bill:
For people serving life who have already gone to the parole board, this bill (S3578), if it became law, would have no practical value. The value in it though is that people serving life who have not yet gone to the parole board would see a parole board sooner, but would still be at the mercy of the parole board, and if parole trends don't change, people will simply go to more parole boards. Parole board practices have to change for any of this or other proposed legislation to mean anything, so people should be supporting efforts and legislation to change parole board practices. --Eric Waters
The bill also includes those with determinate sentences which the previous law does not cover. This is a big improvement even if it will have no practical value if they've already served what they would have needed to if this bill were in place. It will still mean a lot for those whom it will affect. --Lorraine Barde
8. MODERN DAY SLAVERY
The Thirteenth Amendment reads: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
A New York Times March 4, 2007 article titled ‘Inmates Will Replace Migrants in Colorado Fields’, by DAN FROSCH, readers learned that because Colorado has tough new immigration restrictions, migrant workers are fleeing to other states, and farmers are looking to hire prisoners to fill their places in the fields. Under the program farmers would pay a fee to the state, and the State would pay the inmates about 60 cents a day.
9. OTISVILLE BROADBAND PAROLE SUPPORT INITIATIVE
Many people responded to the FED2 Survey by asking about the Otisville Lifers Broadband Parole Support Initiative: What is it? How do I get involved?, they asked. Here is the response from Otisville:
Strategy:
Long termers: 1. identify suitable community-ready candidates; 2. assemble profile; one page, two sides. Photo optional. Side 1 presents the candidate's biography and commentary on his readiness to reenter society. Side 2 lists accomplishments and plans for life on the outside; 3. profile will provide the following info: the parole appearance date, the timeline for support efforts (letters of support, emails/faxes, phone calls - to Parole Board); 4. will provide addresses, phone #s, email addresses and fax numbers of the Parole Board.
Supporters: 1. Write letters, petitions, make phone calls and send emails to Parole board. 2. Make duplicates of support recommendation letters (one for candidate, one for facility parole officer, and one for Division of Parole in Albany); 3. encourage other people to do the same.
Accountability: 1. Each candidate is committed to positively represent our cause, by becoming an asset to society. 2. Supporters must commit to supporting a candidate for the duration, as nothing would be worse than a large initial show of support and then having it disappear; and to keep candidate updated on their efforts.
Two fold Goal: 1. Demonstrate overwhelming support for candidate's return to society 2. Serve notice: many on outside are watching.
Supporters can come from family; friends; defense attorney; judge; D.A./victim/victim's kin; Lifer's Group, their families and friends; Prison Action Network, Voices from PAN (internet); Building Bridges, by mail and on internet; On the Count, WBAI and website; Al Lewis Lives, WBAI and website; Fancy Broccoli, WVKR and website; Liberty Green Show, listeners; FUUSA congregation; Quaker Groups; Rye Presbyterian congregation; Other organizations, members, newsletter; Family Empowerment Day participants; and of course the "X" factor: Exponential Growth due to sites, shows, newsletters and word of mouth, that are unforeseeable. The trick is dissemination and interest.
This month’s candidate: Ramon Gonzalez, president of the Otisville Lifer’s Group. Oldest of 4 siblings, intelligent and independent youth, left home and attended Art and Design H.S., worked at Museum of Natural History and JFK airport, while living in private home in Queens. Married and became heavily in debt due to wife’s bout with cancer. This debt became the subject of endless arguments and he began to avoid his family, which led to negative associations and his first crime, a robbery in which a man lost his life. For his role, Ramon was given 12.5 to 25. He is deeply remorseful and accepts full responsibility for the loss of his victim’s life. He has consistently sought to better himself and those around him, in an attempt to redeem himself and earn the right to rejoin society. For more information, contact Mr. Gonzalez 92A7663, Otisville C.F., PO Box 8, Otisville NY, 10963.
10. PRISON CLOSURE BACKLASH
N.Y. Republicans want no part of prison closure panel
By Yancey Roy
Journal Albany bureau
[URL:http://www.nyjournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070315/NEWS05/703150390/1035]
March 13, 2007
ALBANY Senate Republicans said Tuesday they won't join an effort to create a committee to propose prison closures, saying it is up to Gov. Eliot Spitzer to advance the idea himself.
Spitzer has called for a new commission to study whether the state should close some prisons and youth detention facilities. Inmate population has dipped about 7,000 over the last seven years, to roughly 63,000 currently. Last year, the Legislature created a panel that eventually produced a plan to close or merge some underused hospitals, an initiative that received bipartisan, if grudging, support.
But the Republican-run Senate omitted the prison proposal from a package of budget bills it passed Tuesday. The Democrat-led Assembly included it in its budget.
Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said Spitzer would have to shoulder the load with his colleagues this time.
"That is an executive initiative," said Bruno, R-Brunswick, Rensselaer County, "and if he wants to do it, he ought to set (the panel) up and name the prisons he wants closed. ... We're leaving it up to him."
Asked why Republicans could support a hospital-closing commission but not one to shutter or change the purpose of penitentiaries, Bruno said those were two different issues. One, hospitals, dealt with "public institutions" while the other, prisons, dealt with state-run facilities, he contended.
Left unsaid, perhaps, is Bruno's political calculus. Senate Republicans are dominated by upstate and Hudson Valley members and most of the prisons and detention centers are situated upstate "providing some of the best paying jobs in some areas.
But one upstate senator with two prisons in his district said perhaps it was Spitzer who was trying to "politically insulate" himself from criticism.
"A governor doesn't have the power to close hospitals. He does have the power to close prisons," said Sen. George Winner, R-Elmira. "He wants to change the process to take some of the heat off himself."
Similar to Bruno, Winner said Spitzer should make closure recommendations himself.
Spitzer refrained from criticizing the Republicans on this topic ,unlike more contentious budget issues such as health care. But he said he won't necessarily drop the issue.
"There are a number of things that were not in (the Senate's) budget" package, Spitzer said. "We'll work with them. I think they understand it's an important issue. We'll move forward on it. We will just have to work it out."
Reach Yancey Roy at yroy@gannett.com
11. PRISON RADIO
Al Lewis Lives, hosted by Karen Lewis, broadcasts on Saturdays from noon to 1:30 pm on WBAI, 99.5 FM, NYC.
The Fancy Broccoli Show airs on WVKR, 91.3FM, Poughkeepsie NY on somewhat alternate Sundays from 3 - 6 pm, Eastern Time. WVKR streams online - go to WVKR.org and click on (or near) the word 'LISTEN'.
Democracy Now!, with Amy Goodman, also airs on WBAI - from 8AM-9AM weekdays, on WVKR every weekday from 5PM-6PM, and on WRPI Troy, 91.5 FM from 9AM-10AM. [For an excellent program on prison, listen to the Friday 3/30/07 program archived at www.DemocracyNow.org]
Voices from the Prison Action Network is taking a break for a few weeks. The program will be changing it’s broadcast location to the internet, where anyone with a computer can listen to any program at any time, from anywhere in the world. We'll let you know the details in the May issue.
If you don’t have a computer we encourage you to use your public library to access the internet for all of these programs. Any readers who can offer low cost computers and a tutorial in using email and the internet is invited to offer your services in these pages. We think it is becoming urgent that people have access to the largest independent source of news available. Invest in a computer, and stop watching TV!
12. REQUIRED PROGRAMS: WHO BENEFITS?
“Required” programs are programs that have to be taken by a prisoner in order to satisfy their needs for rehabilitation. CASAT, RSAT, ART, Phase I, II, III, etc. These programs are meant to earn “short term - non violent offenders” merit time and early release at the parole board. Civilian staff are paid to facilitate these programs. In my 18 years in prison I have yet to see one civilian facilitate these programs. These programs are always facilitated by prisoners, long-term violent offenders. In some cases a prisoner has been the facilitator for one or more of these programs for 10 years; years in which all of the non-violent short term offenders that have graduated from the program under the long termer’s instruction have been released by the parole board simply because they satisfactorily completed the program, while time and again, when the instructors/facilitators of these programs appear before the parole board, they are denied parole because their “release is incompatible with the safety and welfare of society “, or their “release will deprecate the seriousness of the offense as to undermine respect for the law”, etc., etc. In other words, these men are not ready to return to society while all of the men that have taken instruction from them over the years are released. I know a man who spent years facilitating programs who finally got tired of getting hit at the parole board time and time again while his students were released, so he requested a program change. His spirit was broken. He was not allowed to change his program. He received a letter from the Dep. Supt. of Programs in the facility which said the facility needed him to continue to facilitate the program. Some of us wonder if these men are denied parole because to release them would not be in the best interest of society, as the parole decisions claim, or are they denied parole because releasing them is not in the best interest of the DOCS and the civilians who are paid to facilitate programs?
To many of us who have not only spent many years changing our own lives, but also helping others change theirs, this is a true Horror Story. Every time we appear before the parole Board and are denied parole once again, it kills another little piece of us. Luckily there are a lot of good men in here that rally around a fallen soldier who is once again wounded by the parole board and they breathe life back into him and help him get his mind, heart and soul ready to go to war for another 24 months, but how long can this go on before our soldiers can’t fight to stay positive anymore? -- Pedro Alicea
13. THE SQUARE FETTER © Copyright by James E. Morse 2005. This is part 3 in the serialization.
[A hand crafted, illustrated edition of the book is available for $4 through Prison Action Network]
Strange things proliferate in the vacuum of time
THE SQUARE FETTER
Months after Jones’ strange day in court, he still cringed from the tap, tap rapping of the judge’s time-sick gavel; the tap, tap sounding that foretold Jones’ sentence to the living death; the crazed tapping that accompanied his transport to the nonpenitential congregate fetter—the ruinous social organism that is called the “Beast” by the captives who languish there.
Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.
Once deposited in the institution, Jones was left in the charge of a prison guard wearing a blue rumpled uniform and black leather gloves. The nameplate read Momus. The guard, blond hair severely shorn into a law enforcement crew cut, talked around a plug of oozing tobacco. Now and then, he spat brown slime into a clear plastic cup. Holding the portable spittoon like a microphone, Momus delivered a red-faced welcoming address—the gist of which was that stupid behavior resulted in corporeal punishment. “END OF STORY!” Momus blurted.
Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.
“We’ll kick that hip-hop ass”—hip-hop ass, hip-hop ass, the threat re-echoed. When Momus abruptly snatched his sacred pole from the metal ring on his belt, Jones flinched. Grinning maliciously, the guard lifted the wooden baton and signaled Jones to proceed in the direction of the square fetter.
An electric gate whirred open and Jones, with Momus at his heels, slinked through. He ascended a flight of metal stairs, passed through another whirring gate, then shuffled the length of the musty building called A Block. The shoes that they gave him made a crunching noise; the crunch-crunch played counterpoint to the tap, tap refrain of the time-sick gavel. Jones’ former gait—the freewheeling swagger, with sweeping arm motions—had long since collapsed into a listless shamble; arms pinioned tightly to his sides. The dark eyes—once points of flashing defiance—were now subdued, timid. [To be continued]
14. SUPPORT MEETINGS
Albany: PFNY meeting at 7:00 pm every Monday at the Women’s Bldg, 79 Central Avenue. Please call ahead: Alison 518 453 6659
Buffalo: Groups for men and women meet separately on Thursdays, from 5:30-6:30pm at GROUP Ministries, Inc., 1333 Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo. These programs are FREE and confidential. For more information, call 716-539-1844.
North Babylon LI: Prison Families Anonymous meets on the 2nd and 4th Wed of each month at 7:30 pm at the Babylon Town Hall Annex. You are welcome if you have a family member in prison. For more info you may call Barbara: Ph: 631-630-9118, Cell: 631-943-0441
Poughkeepsie: PFNY Support Group Room 306 of the Main Building of Family Partnership at 29 North Hamilton St. Poughkeepsie, NY. Meetings will be held on the 2nd and 4th Mondays of the month at 7pm. The Citizens for Restorative Justice meet the first Monday of the month, 6:30 to 8:00PM. The location changes so call ahead of time, 845-464-4736.
Schenectady: PFNY meeting at 7pm on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of every month at First United Methodist Church - 603 State Street - entrance on Chapel Street - behind MVP Building. Jeanette: 518 280 0354 anytime after 6pm.
15. TELEPHONE JUSTICE CAMPAIGN
TAKE ACTION - Tell Sen. Nozzolio to move the Family Connections bill out of Committee
We've come close the past two years in passing the Family Connections bill, but this is the year we're going to make it happen. Senator Nozzolio must follow the leadership of Governor Spitzer and the New York State Assembly and move the Family Connections bill (S.705, which provides inmates with telephone services utilizing a debit card system and reasonable collect call system rates) out of Committee immediately. Write or call him today:
Michael F. Nozzolio, Chairman, Senate Crime Victims, Crime and Correction Committee, Room 409, Legislative Office Building, Albany, NY 12247, (518)455-2366, Fax (518)426-6953
CONTRACT UPDATE - What to expect on April 1, 2007
Spitzer's decision to end the state commission provision of the contract will take effect on April 1, 2007. Because there are so many problems with the contract, Spitzer's administration has decided to give MCI/Verizon a one-year extension but with the 50% rate reduction. He and his staff are currently researching prison telephone contracts, and they will draft a new Request for Proposal in late summer 2007 for a completely new contract to go into effect in 2008.
16. TRANSPORTATION TO PRISONS
From Albany/Troy: The NEST prison shuttle schedule: Mt. McGregor, Washington, and Great Meadow Facilities on Sat, Apr 7 ($30 adults, $20 children), and the Coxsackie, Greene, and Hudson Correctional Facilities on Sat, Apr 14, and SUN, Apr 29 ($15 adults and $10 children), leaving Oakwood Ave Presbyt. Church parking lot, Troy at 7 AM, and Albany Greyhound Bus station at 7:15. Trip to the Utica Hub (Midstate, Marcy, Mohawk, Oneida) Sat, Apr 21 leaving shortly after 5 AM ($40 adults, $25 children). Call for reservations and information: Linda O'Malley 518- 273-5199.
From the Capital District:
Rides are offered by volunteers of the First Unitarian Universalist Society’s Justice Committee on weekdays only. Please contact us at 518 253-7533 if you need a ride.
17. WHAT’S HAPPENING AROUND NEW YORK STATE
Buffalo Area:
Prisoners Are People Too! is a justice advocacy program that meets on selected Mondays in Buffalo at the Pratt-Willert Community Center, 422 Pratt Street from 6:30-8:30pm. Each meeting features a documentary film, related to some prison issue, and one or more guest speakers who address that issue. At its March 23 meeting on “parole reform,” PRP2! screened Melis Birder’s “Family Empowerment Day 2,” and the speaker was Frank Williams, an ordained minister and case manager for Operation H.O.P.E., Inc., who spent 28 years in prison. Also present were Eugenio Russi, a Regional Director of the NYS Division of Parole and George Alexander, the new Chairmen of the Parole Board. At its next meeting on Monday, April 23, PRP2! will screen “Legacy of Torture: The War Against the Black Liberation Movement” and the speaker will be Mrs. Eva M. Doyle, educator and journalist, who will share her thoughts on Criminalizing a Race by Charshee McIntyre. Prisoners Are People Too! will meet the following month on May 21. Film and guest speaker(s) TBA.
Ithaca Area:
Community Advisory Board (CAB) to MacCormick Maximum Security Center was organized by Ithaca Drug Treatment Court Judge Marjorie Olds and Lynn Andersen, Director of the Alternatives Library at Cornell Univ., who insisted on having a citizen presence connected to this nearby (Caroline, NY---17 miles) facility which has a capacity for 52 male residents, 14 – 20 years old. The CAB meets monthly, alternating between an off-campus location and at MacCormick. The meetings at Mac are attended by our Board members (usually about 10 – 12 show up) as well as the Mac administration, i.e., the director, assistant director, and volunteer coordinator---and, at times, some honor residents. The alternate off-campus mtgs. usually have 6 – 10 Board members. We volunteer and provide tutoring and a wide range of programs and courses, including for high school diplomas, GED, and college credit, as well as for personal growth and such special experiences as with pets, gardening, writing and newsletter, and music (including cello!)--- all of which the administration welcomes and makes good use of. We also attend Mac functions and, in general, see as part of our contribution, providing interested, caring contact for the residents with actual citizens and the outside world. We have connections with both Ithaca College and Cornell and, thus, college students are up there every week for one program or another. -- Monty Berman CAB co-chair Ithaca, NY. [Membership is open, contact Monty at mberman116@hotmail.com, Monty Berman, Empire State College, 118 N. Tioga St., Ithaca, NY 14850-4354, 607 272-1809]
Metropolitan NYC:
Manhattan: The Coalition for Parole Restoration (CPR) met on 3/26/07 at 6PM to discuss their expansion plans relating to a new Website, renting office space, hiring Summer Youth Interns, as well as their upcoming "Parole Workshop" on Saturday (3/31) in Poughkeepsie, NY. Those applying for the Summer Youth Internship must have a presently or formerly incarcerated parent and be between the ages of 14-18 yrs. The work week will be Monday -Thursday, 5 hours a day. The pay will be $10.00 an hour. Preference will be given to the children of current members of CPR. Complete details will appear in the next issue of their newsletter, The Deuce Club.
NEXT MEETING: April 16th from 6-8PM at 520 8th Ave., (btwn 36/37th Streets, on the 22nd Flr., Travel Suggestions: "A" or "D" Train to 34th Street....(Families/Public are invited)
North Babylon: Prison Families Anonymous met on March 28. The following report was filed by someone attending for the first time:
Parole support for my husband brings me to rooms I don't always make time for in between work and visits upstate. Tonight I met a variety of people representing a wide gamut of prison nightmares. It was friendly open and informational. Where else can you go for such myriad of raw emotion? Brokenhearted mothers, fathers' previous conception of their strength visibly shattered because here in the life of the NYS prison system we are all trampled on without mercy. White, black, hispanic and 'other' now become the ‘green race’ that faces a similar shameful indifference.
I heard numbers like 3-6, flat 15, and 10 months to go. I saw people writhing in new pain, old pain, twisted warped pain; good people spun into the world of the dark evil beast known as 'docs'; and in my own pain a new meaning of 'life' is born. I secretly wished for the pain of a flat 15 or 20, for today 'life' at the end of your sentence might as well say 'death' to the board of parole who decides with no soul.
The parole system was based on the belief that persons can be rehabilitated. Lifers have the lowest recidivism rate. Often they're old and dying as they wait on their parole to come through. All the evil 'corrections' wants to dish out cannot change right from wrong. Their denials cannot kill the love and dedication of we the people that await the arrival of justice. ---Nellie, Lifer Wife.
[Building Bridges would like to know what other things are happening in NYS.]
18. WORK RELEASE UPDATE
By now you may have heard the news: Gov Spitzer issued an executive order (#9) which not only does not grant work release to violent offenders but has actually banned more categories than before.
Key phrases from the order:
WHEREAS, there are certain classes of inmates who have committed crimes of particular violence, depravity or victimization, and who are less likely to succeed in temporary release programs; and
WHEREAS, the temporary release of such inmates likely would cause alarm and concern in the surrounding community, and thereby would diminish the acceptance of temporary release programs generally; [I, Gov Eliot Spitzer] do hereby order the Commissioner of the Department of Correctional Services to promulgate, modify, adopt, or rescind any rules, regulations, directives, policies or procedures as may be necessary to prevent the future transfer of any inmate to any program of temporary release, when the inmate is convicted of any of the following crimes, or is convicted of an attempt or a conspiracy to commit any of the following crimes:
(1) an act of terrorism as defined in Article 490 of the Penal Law;
(2) a homicide offense as defined in Article 125 of the Penal Law;
(3) a sex offense as defined in Article 130 of the Penal Law;
(4) an offense involving the sexual performance of a child as defined in Article 263 of the Penal Law;
(5) incest as defined in Article 255 of the Penal Law; or
(6) a violent felony offense that includes as an element: (i) being armed with, the use of, the threatened use of, or the possession with the intent to use unlawfully against another of, a deadly weapon or a dangerous instrument; or (ii) the infliction of serious physical injury.
While some of the above categories may seem acceptable to some, #6 certainly is in opposition to our request for inclusion of reformed violent felons in work release eligibility. Therefore we suggest continuing to gather signatures on the petition circulated in Building Bridges. You’ve sent 232 signatures so far; keep them coming! And we can also urge people to write a letter to Gov Spitzer, State Capitol, Albany NY 12224, stating their objections to executive order #9. He needs to hear how many people do NOT support this move, and our reasons. It is our suggestion that the tone of our letters NOT be accusatory, but polite and educational.
Some good points were made by Bryce Rudert who sent the following irate response:
If we have another "steward of the people" in this state who refuses to consider the social science data when making an executive decision (but instead panders to the uneducated illogic of uninformed public sentiment) we will have to REALLY educate the public as to WHY 50 cents of every tax dollar goes to 70 prisons in upstate NY while the remaining 50 is supposed to cover health, education, highways, infrastructure and every other damn thing (is it any wonder why our infirm are neglected, our kids are ignorant, and our roadways have potholes that swallow cars if you manage to swerve out of the way of the falling bridges--while men and women in their sixties and seventies are deemed too "dangerous" for society-at-large due to things they did in their teens and twenties?? Maybe if we let out a handful of them we could pave a road or two, shore up a bridge, educate a cohort of high school kids--and even make it possible for old folks to buy their pharmaceuticals in NY instead of Canada!!
All questions regarding anything posted at this blogspot may be sent to
PAN
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
March 2007
Dear Reader,
February certainly ended with a flurry of activity. The Telephone Justice Campaign scored a victory in the NYS Court of Appeals! (see #11) The case will now be sent back to the Supreme Court, to rule on whether plaintiffs’ Constitutional claims state a cause of action. We have won this round! Congratulations to Rachel Meeropol for a wonderful job arguing on our behalf! (We will send you the court transcript if you want to pay for printing and postage on 25 pages.) Then on Feb 19, we learned that John Caher, former Albany Bureau Chief of the NY Law Journal, had moved on to become the Director of Public Information for the NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services. John Caher encouraged many of us by reporting on the injustices of the parole board which we had been experiencing for so many years. We will miss his insightful articles, but we wish him all the best. (Several of his best articles are available on this website). Also in the news was a report that Governor Spitzer has taken what may be the first step in closing prisons and changing sentencing laws (#1). And he appointed a new head of Parole, George E. Alexander (#5). Many people who have been working hard for many years on criminal justice issues have his ear. We must take advantage of this opportunity. In this issue you will read about the ways in which several members of Prison Action Network are taking action. Let us support one another. One way is to gather signatures for the Work Release Petition attached. Another is to write our representatives when we are pleased with what they have done, as well as when we are unhappy. In every letter we can ask for something more. Let’s keep fanning those winds of change!
Articles:
1. CLOSING PRISONS - Governor proposes commission to study prison closing and changing sentencing law.
2. CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN THE SPITZER ERA - Brian Fischer, Robert Gangi, Michael Jacobson and Rev Vivian Nixon speak at panel discussion
3. FAMILY EMPOWERMENT DAY THINK TANK MEETINGS - People who want change are needed, to be part of a strategy meeting. Albany, Buffalo and NYC meetings are scheduled. YOU are invited.
4. LETTER TO ELIOT SPITZER'S TRANSITION TEAM - "Americans must realize that convicted felons are not incurably corrupt or violent, that they are as capable as anybody else of learning from their mistakes and appreciating the value of a stable social order."
5. PAROLE BOARD APPOINTEES - George B. Alexander has been nominated to serve as Chairman of the State Board of Parole and Chief Executive Officer of the New York State Division of Parole.
6. (PICS) POST INCARCERATION SYNDROME AND RELAPSE - a set of symptoms that are claimed to be present in many currently and recently released prisoners that are caused by being subjected to prolonged incarceration in environments of punishment with few opportunities for education, job training, or rehabilitation
7. REENFRANCHISEMENT CONVERSATION - "Restoration of voting is the KEY IDEA; the practical solution to all of the problems the public has "heard" about.."
8. SENATE BILLS PENDING - merit time bill that includes lifers; bill to provide for discharge from parole consideration, even for lifers; bill to allow formerly incarcerated people to get barbering and cosmetology licenses; bill that would give tax incentives to employers that hire the formerly incarcerated
9. THE SQUARE FETTER - "Malus Chronos, Lord Supreme..Of everything that binds, Sandman of sepulchral dreams, Lord of all archontic minds." Part 2 in a serialization.
10. SUPPORT MEETINGS - meet people who understand; in Albany, Buffalo, Poughkeepsie, and Schenectady
11. TELEPHONE JUSTICE CAMPAIGN WINS SECOND VICTORY! - Families win victory in court of appeals on prison telephone challenge
12. TRANSPORTATION TO PRISONS - from Albany/Troy, Buffalo, Capital District; and through The Ride Board
13. WHAT WE NEED - "nothing of any lasting import was ever accomplished in any significant battle against systemic oppression without hard work, unity, dedication, struggle, sacrifice, and more hard work"
14. WORDS FROM INSIDE - “Sending Out Love! Builds Bridges.”
1. CLOSING PRISONS
Spitzer Seeks Panels to Study Prison Closings and Sentencing Laws
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE [excerpts from The New York Times article:]
ALBANY, Feb. 2 - Moving to reverse decades of expansion, Gov. Eliot Spitzer is proposing a commission to study closing some of New York State's dozens of prisons. ...Assistants to the governor said he would also create, through an executive order, a second commission to study changes to sentencing laws. Such measures have helped shrink inmate ranks in other states and could in New York, too. ...Mr. Spitzer hopes to replace the state-subsidized employment on which upstate New York depends with private-sector jobs and investment that could secure its future down the road. ...But a powerful alliance of upstate lawmakers and correction officers' unions guard their constituents' and members' state-financed jobs and are likely to resist any effort to downsize the system. ...Under current law, before the state can close a prison it must give a year's notice to employees, and officials are required to explore options for converting prisons to other uses, such as low-cost housing. "In response to lobbying from the local upstate towns and the correction officers' union, the Legislature has made it much more difficult for the executive to close prisons, even after a time of significant decline in the population," said Robert Gangi, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, an advocacy group for inmates. Both Mr. Spitzer and his staff have also stressed that no closings are imminent and that the creation of the commission itself, which would be wrapped into the state budget, must still past muster with the Legislature.
2. "CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN THE SPITZER ERA"
A conference presented in the morning of February 15 by the Center for NY City Affairs, Milano The New School of Management and Urban Policy and The Correctional Association of NY - reported by Tana Agostini
Acting Commissioner Fischer gave a series of staggering statistics* interspersed with more personal commentary than party liners. Most striking were his stated goals of increasing programming including education, his frank commentary that the majority of parole revocations (38% return in three years) are due to lack of support services for parolees and that his job, simply put, is to prepare inmates for release. Also noteworthy was his specific reference to program creation for those with life without parole. As the Superintendent of Sing Sing, Mr. Fischer ran one of the few maximum security prisons that provided higher education, in spite of Pataki's cutbacks, as well as alternative rehabilitation programs in art and music. He stated his commitment to working with the Dept. of Mental Health to improve treatment for the mentally ill inmate population and referred to new initiatives that are underway on their behalf. AC Fischer will be participating in the Commissions formed by Governor Spitzer to look into potential prison closures and alterative uses for such facilities, changes in sentencing laws, and a second look at work release as a transitional program. His closing remarks were that safe and secure facilities for staff and inmates is his first responsibility but that his goal is to encourage a prison environment where new opportunities for inmates to develop new skills and interests can flourish.
Bob Gangi, Executive Director of the Correctional Association of New York, a non-profit organization dedicated to analyzing and recommending policy to the Department of Corrections, spoke nearly exclusively on his number one priority, the reinstatement of higher education, not only as a moral imperative but as a practical, financial, and common sense approach to reducing recidivism. AC Fischer concurred and made the remark that while it is his goal to provide higher education, funding must exist to support it. Michael Jacobson, Dir. of the Vera Institute of Justice, quoted figures to show that the money saved by closing prisons could support higher education without any increase in funding. Rev.Vivian Nixon, director of the College and Community Fellowship, also presented a slate of information and statistics that supported higher education for incarcerated persons and ultimately it was the theme of the day. Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry was unable to attend.
*Statistics that AC Fischer included were 63,500 inmates incarcerated today, down 8100 from 1999. 36,312 for violent crimes against people, 13,928 for drug offenses, and 8,000 have diagnosed mental health problems which is up 1,000 from 1999. The average sentence is 75 months, the average time in prison for drug offenders is 31 months, almost half of inmates have been in prison before. 62% of all inmates come from the five boroughs of New York and the surrounding counties of Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester and Rockland. 48% of inmates entering the system today are Afro-American, 26% Hispanic and 24% are White. Last year 26,000 inmates were released; research figures indicate that 38% return to state prison within three years.
(The following was added by Judith Brink:)
Jo Ann Page, President of the Fortune Society, was in the audience and mentioned several things that Governor Spitzer can do with a stroke of the pen**.
Make Medicaid enrollment possible before release, so that there is no gap in medical coverage. In many cases, Medicaid would be suspended upon incarceration, not terminated, and just prior to release it would be reinstated.
Provide mandatory government-issued ID immediately upon release.
Exempt indigent people from the fees they must pay for fines, fees, surcharges, etc. involved in their incarceration and parole.
Give the vote to parolees.
Require the NYS Dept of Health to monitor DOCS medical care.
**(Perhaps we should use OUR pens to put pressure on him to do these things: Eliot Spitzer,State Capitol, Albany, NY 12224, 518-474-8390. For email, you can visit his website at www.state.ny.us/governor and click the 'Contact the Governor' link. For Information on Legislation: Session Information page at public.leginfo.state.ny.us).
3. FAMILY EMPOWERMENT DAY THINK TANK MEETINGS - HELP WANTED
People who want change are needed, to be part of a strategy meeting.
The Otisville Lifers have called for a number of Think Tank events around the state to begin planning for (or not...) FED3. These will be informal gatherings of interested people for the purpose of evaluating FED2 and deciding whether to move forward with another event of its kind. All who are interested may attend as many of the Think Tanks as desired, whether or not they attended either of the previous FEDs. Each Think Tank meeting will begin with a viewing of the FED2 documentary film produced by Melis Birder, and continue with an evaluation of FED2, a discussion of the need, or not, for another similar event (FED3), and if, where and when to have such a meeting.
Reports from all the meetings will be presented to the FED Core Group who will communicate the results through Building Bridges, and begin the planning stage of FED3 if there is sufficient interest in having another one.
An Albany Think Tank meeting has been scheduled for Monday March 19 at 7pm, at the Unitarian Church, 405 Washington Ave. Please contact Judith at 518/ 482 2029 or prisonaction@hotmail.comfor more info or to register.
A Buffalo Think Tank Meeting will take place Saturday, March 3, 2:00-4:00pm, 103 Fernhill Avenue. Please contact Karima at 716-834-8438 or karimatells@yahoo.com.
A New York City meeting is scheduled for Thursday evening, March15 at 5:30 pm at a place to be announced. Please contact Sonny at 516 673-4106 or 347 543-0433 or drudertsonny@yahoo.com for details and to register.
4. LETTER TO ELIOT SPITZER'S TRANSITION TEAM
I have contact with remarkable men who have spent years, even decades reflecting on the serious crimes that led to their confinement, who have come to terms with anger and learned to fully acknowledge the implications of what they did. These men are highly civilized. They have attained a degree of self-knowledge that those of us on the outside rarely come to, and a patience that reflects extraordinary self-discipline. These are the men who lead inmate organizations, counseling younger prisoners on alternatives to violence, parenting from inside, and other crucially important issues. Once released they have a tremendous amount to offer society.
Americans must realize that convicted felons are not incurably corrupt or violent, that they are as capable as anybody else of learning from their mistakes and appreciating the value of a stable social order. As responsible workers, as teachers and counselors to youth at risk, as survivors of a potentially soul-destroying experience, they can be a precious resource. But again and again I hear of model prisoners, men admired by all, who are turned down by parole boards without anything like an adequate hearing -- and turned down not just once but three, four, even five times. Understandably these men, for all their strength of character, are at risk of succumbing once again to the cynicism and anger that are part of the air inmates breathe.
This must stop! Parole boards must be instructed to inform themselves fully about the characters and prison histories of the men they evaluate, not just their crimes. They must offer prospective parolees clear criteria for release, and encourage them by showing that meeting these criteria produces real results. Above all they need to recognize that bad men can become good men, and that keeping a good man down does no good to anybody.
---written by a DOCS volunteer
5. PAROLE BOARD APPOINTEES
Former governor Pataki appointed 6 new members to the Parole Board in June of 2006. Jennifer Arena, lacking the required credentials for the post*, has the shortest appointment of those, expiring in June of 2008.
In 2007, 5 members will reach the end of their terms: Guy R. Vizzie, Jr., on Feb 6, Livio Lazzari on May 4, William Crowe and Robert Dennison on August 31, and George C. Johnson on Dec. 31.
So far we have heard of only one Spitzer appointee: George B. Alexander has been nominated to serve as Chairman of the State Board of Parole** and Chief Executive Officer of the New York State Division of Parole.
Mr. Alexander currently serves as Director and Commissioner of the Erie County Department of Probation and Youth Detention Services. From 1993 to 2000, he served as Deputy Director in the Parole Violation Unit at the New York State Division of Parole. Prior to that, Mr. Alexander was a Senior Parole Officer and a Parole Revocation Specialist. Mr. Alexander received his B.A. from Buffalo State College.
As Chairman of the State Board of Parole and Chief Executive Officer of the New York State Division of Parole, Mr. Alexander's annual salary will be $120,800.
*259-b (2) stipulates a 4 yr college degree, and least 5 years of experience in one or more of the fields of criminology, administration of criminal justice, law enforcement, sociology, law, social work, corrections, psychology, psychiatry or medicine.
**What puzzles the editor is how Gov Spitzer can appoint someone to replace the current chairman, Robert Dennison, when his term does not expire until August 31? The only explanation that makes sense is that Mr. Dennison will remain on the board until August; Mr. Alexander will replace Guy Vizzi, whose term expired in February, and will become Chairman when Dennison leaves. Does anyone know if that’s correct?
6. (PICS) POST INCARCERATION SYNDROME AND RELAPSE
Terence T. Gorski [6147 Deltona Blvd., Spring Hill, FL 34606, 708 799 5000, www.tgorski.com] specializes in relapse prevention, managing chemically dependent offenders, and developing community-based teams for managing the problems of alcohol, drugs, violence, and crime. He has created a psychological diagnosis of PICS to identify a set of symptoms that he claims are present in many currently and recently released prisoners and are caused by being subjected to prolonged incarceration in environments of punishment with few opportunities for education, job training, or rehabilitation. He says, "since PICS is created by criminal justice system policy and programming in our well intentioned but misguided attempt to stop crime, the epidemic can be prevented and public safety protected by changing the public policies that call for incarcerating more people for longer periods of time, for less severe offenses, in more punitive environments that emphasize the use of solitary confinement, and eliminate or severely restrict prisoner access to educational, vocational, and rehabilitation programs while incarcerated. He recommends implementing policies that:
1. fund the training and expansion of community based addiction and mental health programs;
2. expand the role of drug and mental health courts that promote treatment alternatives to incarceration;
3. convert 80% of our correctional facilities into rehabilitation programs;
4. eliminate required long mandated minimum sentences;
5. institute universal prerelease programs for all offenders;
6. assure access to publicly funded programs for addiction and mental health treatment upon release.
--Information contributed by Chauncy V. Ramos.
7. REENFRANCHISEMENT CONVERSATION
The following is copied from a series of letters to Building Bridges from James Morse, who is arguing that NY reformers should unite behind the issue of re-enfranchisement, and that working for parole reform is putting the cart before the horse, so to speak. We invite your input to this conversation.
When the prison system becomes too big to control, "miscarriages of justice" are more or less routine. Justice preys upon weaker citizens to the point of producing the preconditions (recidivism, etc.) for its continued existence. The only solution for this problem is more democracy, that is, more political freedom for all citizens. Hence, the re-enfranchisement of prisoners. When the government chooses the electorate, as the case is now, there's less democracy for everyone. Re-enfranchisement means more democracy for everyone - - before it's too late.
The enlightened prison reformer discerns that it's now time to present a comprehensive and practical solution for public debate. Restoration of our voting rights is the KEY unifying idea whose time has come. Guys in here agree that restoration of our voting rights would change conditions over night -- literally. It's a no-brainer. Even publicly debating restoration has the power to prompt genuine reforms. NY reformers need to organize (a convention) around a strong idea that has a good track record. Restoration of voting rights is known to restore the good order that results from practicing the democracy that we preach. Thinking in unity and public debate promotes energy and vision--what's now lacking. Restoration of voting is the KEY IDEA; the practical solution to all of the problems the public has "heard" about.
For the majority of captives, the passage of decades and the false promises inherent of the penal system promotes magical visions: "All I need to do is get out and everything will be swell!" Meanwhile the data establishes that, in terms of job opportunities, housing, etc., most of us are ill-prepared to confront the daunting challenges of being at liberty, after decades and decades of lockdown. The parole board has a dismal record when it comes to foreseeing what "inmate" is going to stab a waiter to death (like Jack Henry Abbott) and all it takes is one such incident to derail a liberal parole policy.
8. SENATE BILLS PENDING
From CURE-NY--
Please note and support the Bills cited below.
Rudy Cypser
-
A merit time bill that includes lifers was sent to Sen. Montgomery's office last month. Right now it is being prepared by the Bill Drafting Committee and will be introduced by the Senator when it is completed.
Also, the Senate Bill, S2016 (see below), allowing discharge from parole consideration, even for lifers, is in committee and needs to move. If you support it, you could send a letter to each of the Senators on the NYS Senate Corrections Committee. To find, visit the Senate website: www.senate.state.ny.us
Also, two other bills deserve support, both in different committees. One is S820, which would allow formerly incarcerated people to get barbering and cosmetology licenses. Last year this bill got through the senate and assembly, but was vetoed by Pataki when it got to his desk. It should make it through this time. It is in the Consumer Protection Committee now. (Letters of support to: Charles Fuschillo 915 LOB, Albany 12247)
The other one is S2956, which provides tax incentives to employers that hire formerly incarcerated individuals. That one is in the Investigations and Government Operations Committee. (Letters of support to: George Winner, 814 LOB, Albany 12247)
Senate Bill 2016
January 30, 2007
Introduced by Sens. MONTGOMERY, DUANE, KRUEGER
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:
Section 1. Section 259-j of the executive law is REPEALED and a new section 259-j is added to read as follows:
§ 259-j. Discharge from parole and conditional release.
1. Where a determinate sentence is imposed for a violent felony offense as defined in section 70.02 of the penal law, if the board of parole is satisfied that an absolute discharge from parole or from conditional release is in the best interests of society, the board may grant such a discharge prior to the expiration of the full maximum term to any person who has been on unrevoked parole or conditional release for at least three consecutive years.
2. A merit termination of sentence may be granted to all other eligible persons after one year of presumptive release, parole or conditional release.
3. The division of parole must grant termination of sentence after three years of unrevoked parole to a person serving an indeterminate sentence for a class A felony offense defined in article two hundred twenty of the penal law, and must grant termination of sentence after two years of unrevoked parole to a person serving an indeterminate sentence for any other felony offense defined in article two hundred twenty or two hundred twenty-one of the penal law.
4. A discharge granted under this section shall constitute a termination of the sentence with respect to which it was granted. No such discharge shall be granted unless the board of parole is satisfied that the parolee, otherwise financially able to comply with an order of restitution and the payment of any mandatory surcharge previously imposed by a court of competent jurisdiction, has made a good faith effort to comply therewith.
5. § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.
9. THE SQUARE FETTER, continued. This is part 2 in the serialization.
© Copyright by James E. Morse 2005
THE GUARDIAN’S PRAYER (Poem from Malus Chronos – A Novella about the Prison Industrial Organism)
Malus Chronos*, Lord Supreme
Of everything that binds,
Sandman of sepulchral dreams,
Lord of all archontic minds.
Your reign within thy leaping walls:
Bestial total institute,
Demarcates Reprisal’s Sprawl,
Fetters tightly cellblock brutes.
Once within thy iron cage,
Exposed to durance vile,
Their life becomes an empty page,
Ignorance their style.
—Malus Chronos makes brutes cower;
Makes them love the things they hate/
Lord Supreme of bread and power,
Thy bounty is my fate—
Malus Chronos, idol gold,
Horologist of all Bad Times,
For thee I wield this Sacred Pole
To expiate their brutish crimes.
The sound of keys in turning locks
Is music to thine ears;
The ticking of infernal clocks
Tapping out the endless years.
From iron box to yellow lines,
Back and forth they slink;
The grand design of feeble minds
That totter on the brink.
—Malus Chronos makes brutes cower;
Makes them love the things they hate/
Lord Supreme of Bread and Power,
Thy bounty is my fate—
*Greek—Bad Times
Copies of the hand crafted, illustrated book are available for $4 through Prison Action Network.
10. SUPPORT MEETINGS
Albany: PFNY meeting at 7:00 pm every Monday at the Women’s Bldg, 79 Central Avenue. Please call ahead: Alison 518 453 6659
Buffalo: Groups for men and women meet separately on Thursdays, from 5:30-6:30pm at GROUP Ministries, Inc., 1333 Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo. These programs are FREE and confidential. For more information, call 716-539-1844.
Poughkeepsie: PFNY Support Group Room 306 of the Main Building of Family Partnership at 29 North Hamilton St. Poughkeepsie, NY. Meetings will be held on the 2nd and 4th Mondays of the month at 7pm.
The Citizens for Restorative Justice The Citizens for Restorative Justice meet the first Monday of the month, 6:30 to 8:00. The location changes so call ahead of time, 845-464-4736.
Schenectady: PFNY meeting at 7pm on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of every month at First United Methodist Church - 603 State Street - entrance on Chapel Street - behind MVP Building. Jeanette: 518 280 0354 anytime after 6pm.
Prison Families of New York has a new website, created to assist families with incarcerated individuals in New York State Correctional Facilities. There is information on support groups, policy recommendations, children of prisoners issues, visiting conditions, ride lists, and much more. Please visit the website and pass it on to others you may feel would most benefit from it. www.prisonfamiliesofnewyork.org
11. TELEPHIONE JUSTICE CAMPAIGN WINS SECOND VICTORY!
Families Win Victory In Court Of Appeals On Prison Telephone Challenge
High Court Allows Challenge to "Unlegislated Tax" on Poor Families to Move Forward
Albany, NY, February 20, 2007 - Today the Court of Appeals ruled that a constitutional challenge brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of New York family members who pay a grossly inflated rate to receive phone calls from their loved ones in state prisons must be allowed to move forward.
The lawsuit, Walton v. NYSDOCS and MCI, seeks an order prohibiting the State and MCI from charging exorbitant rates to the family members of prisoners to finance a 57.5% kickback to the State and money damages for the recipients of those calls. MCI charges these family members a 630% markup over regular consumer rates to receive a collect call from their loved ones, the only way possible to speak with them. The case was dismissed in 2004 by Judge George Ceresia of the Supreme Court of New York, Albany County, citing issues of timeliness and the Appellate Division affirmed that dismissal in 2006.
The Court of Appeals, New York's highest court, agreed to hear the case in July of 2006, and reversed the lower courts' decisions. In its opinion, the Court of Appeals held that the lower courts erred in dismissing plaintiffs' constitutional claims as untimely. The Court held today that plaintiffs acted reasonably in bringing their complaints to the Public Service Commission, the administrative body that regulates telephone rates, before bringing the case in State Court.
"We are thrilled with the Court's ruling" said Rachel Meeropol, the attorney handling the case for the Center for Constitutional Rights. "The family members and friends of prisoners in New York State have sought a ruling on the constitutionality of New York's prison telephone system for years. That day is now in sight."
Judge Pigott wrote the opinion for the Court. Judge Smith wrote a concurring opinion in which he agreed that plaintiffs' claims should move forward, but acknowledged that this decision was "influenced" by the fact that plaintiffs raised "substantial" constitutional claims. Judge Read dissented.
The Court remanded the case back to the Supreme Court, to rule on whether plaintiffs' Constitutional claims state a cause of action.
12. TRANSPORTATION TO PRISONS
From Buffalo:
VAN SERVICE TO WESTERN NY PRISONS: Convenient Transportation Services weekend (Saturday and Sunday) trips to Attica, Albion, Wende, Orleans, Wyoming, Groveland, Livingston (Saturday only), Lakeview, Collins, and Gowanda. The cost is $40-$50 for adults and $10 for children age 12 and younger requiring a seat. For more information call 716-605-3179.
From the Capital District:
Rides are offered by volunteers of the First Unitarian Universalist Society’s Justice Committee on weekdays only. Please contact us at 518 253-7533 if you need a ride.
From Albany/Troy:
The NEST prison shuttle schedule: Mt. McGregor, Washington, and Great Meadow Facilities on Sat, March 3 ($30 adults, $20 children), and the Coxsackie, Greene, and Hudson Correctional Facilities on Sat, March 10, and Sun., March 25 ($15 adults and $10 children), leaving Oakwood Ave Presbyt. Church parking lot, Troy at 7 AM, and Albany Greyhound Bus station at 7:15. Trip to the Utica Hub (Midstate, Marcy, Mohawk, Oneida) Sat, March 17 leaving shortly after 5 AM ($40 adults, $25 children). Call for reservations and information: Linda O'Malley 518- 273-5199.
13. WHAT WE NEED
by Bryce "Sonny" Rudert
For me, the highlights of the February 15th symposium in NYC sponsored by the NY City Bar Association entitled, "Restoring Fairness to Parole." were as follows:
1) The detailed description of ongoing parole board illegalities and abuses described by Vernon Manley, who until very recently served as an active parole commissioner. The abuses and illegalities Manley described include the absence of any type of formal training for parole commissioners, himself admittedly included, and his further admission that more often than not only one member of each parole board panel is actually participating in the interview; the others are instead thumbing through the folders of upcoming candidates--this "double abuse" indicates that the parole candidate in the hearing is harmed by the failure of board members to participate in the hearing as compelled by law and the scheduled candidates for upcoming hearings are also harmed, as Manley stated that this last-minute folder browsing is how the parole boards interpret the "meaningful review" of a parole candidate's folder prior to the hearing itself;
2) Judge Sheridan's call for Judicial oversight of the parole boards to ensure that they follow the existing mandates of law;
3) My own opportunity to briefly address the room, commend Judge Sheridan for the brave, groundbreaking integrity exhibited in his noteworthy Article 78 decisions and agree with his assessment, however further noting the need for immediate emergency relief for aging prisoners like Antonio Calderone, John Flynn and Carlos Lozada who have each already served over 30 years due to repeated unfair parole denials which are solely predicated upon their crimes of conviction.
Prior to this symposium, the most notable news that I'd encountered in the press regarding correctional policy in New York State was the fact that the upstate Republican prison-town power brokers were up in arms at the mere mention that Governor Spitzer wants an exploratory committee to determine if our taxpaying public might not be better served by shutting down several of this state's 70 existing prisons.
Just after this event, several of us shared the fact that the parole boards are by and large continuing exactly where they left off with the same old unfair and illegal practices of the previous Pataki administration (no doubt, surely continuing as well to engage in exactly the same serious illegalities and abuses described by Vernon Manley). Notably, Dalton Diaz, Earl Crutchfield and Len McRae were all denied parole (as Dalton and Earl had each previously been) based upon the "nature of the crime," despite folders brimming with compelling evidence of their rehabilitation over the course of their decades in prison, and also despite the large and vocal support of family, friends, and even former strangers--those men and women of goodwill and high moral integrity all across our state--who sent many letters in support of their parole.
And so we find ourselves asking: What do we need?
A) Based upon Vernon Manley's own detailed testimony before a roomful of jurists and officers of the court, as well as the public-at-large, we need the New York State Legislature to consider the ramifications of Manley's testimony and hold investigative hearings into the Division of Parole's repeated and ongoing failure to adhere to the clearly legislated statutory criteria which governs the parole process.
B) Based upon Judge Sheridan's call for judicial oversight of the parole process, as well as the increasingly numerous court decisions now echoing this sentiment, we need this state's higher courts to designate a judicial review committee to oversee the entire parole process.
C) Further, based upon the increasingly growing number of aging prisoners repeatedly unjustly denied parole for offense related factors, we need special and immediate emergency relief that will put these men and women on the front of the list to be released to parole supervision.
D) Based upon upstate New York's ill conceived and misdeveloped prison-based economy, we need genuine, open-forum, public debate: Should the primary role of corrections in New York State be the development and provision of economic stability for its distressed and changing rural communities? Here, I would submit that whenever the economic success of one sector of society is directly contingent upon the failed social policies of another, there is in place a recipe for disaster which perpetuates rather than "corrects" the social ills that it was created to address.
E) Based upon our collective experience with the issues at hand and the numerous misconceptions that fuel the fear that stokes the engines of the prison-based economy, we on the outside need to collectively step up our efforts to educate the public. We must also ensure that we keep the light shining Inside and step up our letter-writing efforts as well, not only voicing our support for community-ready parole candidates but also demonstrating our disgust and outrage whenever the parole boards completely disregard our support and instead unfairly deny parole to the worthy.
F) Lastly, based upon all of our collective wisdom, we have learned that the reward for complacency is always one thing only: more of the same. And so, to those still on the Inside: remember that creativity is your greatest resource. We must all invent new and creative ways to demonstrate that you are not going to be a willing participant in your continued unjust oppression--while also drawing positive attention to the continuing struggle for fairness and equity. Here, we must all remember that nothing of any lasting import was ever accomplished in any significant battle against systemic oppression without hard work, unity, dedication, struggle, sacrifice, and more hard work. Peace.
14. WORDS FROM INSIDE
I would like to share these Words of Wisdom, “Sending Out Love! Builds Bridges.” Joe Rudd 83A7286
I am proud to announce as of January of this year 2007, we have officially started a Lifers and Long Termers Organization here at Arthur Kill Prison. We are waiting for permission and approval to use the GOVERNMENTAL EDUCATION ORGANIZATION (G.E.O.) HONORABLE NAME.
We already proudly had our first guest speaker, the Honorable Charlie Sullivan, founder of International C.U.R.E. (Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants) in Washington, DC. He stopped at the prison on his way to the United Nations, where he spoke for 2 days along with Rudy and Betty Cypser from C.U.R.E. NY. We will do our best here at Arthur Kill to follow in the Honorable Footsteps of G.E.O. and the Otisville Lifers Group.
Love! Prayers and Best! Best! Wishes to All, Your Good Friend, Joe Rudd
February certainly ended with a flurry of activity. The Telephone Justice Campaign scored a victory in the NYS Court of Appeals! (see #11) The case will now be sent back to the Supreme Court, to rule on whether plaintiffs’ Constitutional claims state a cause of action. We have won this round! Congratulations to Rachel Meeropol for a wonderful job arguing on our behalf! (We will send you the court transcript if you want to pay for printing and postage on 25 pages.) Then on Feb 19, we learned that John Caher, former Albany Bureau Chief of the NY Law Journal, had moved on to become the Director of Public Information for the NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services. John Caher encouraged many of us by reporting on the injustices of the parole board which we had been experiencing for so many years. We will miss his insightful articles, but we wish him all the best. (Several of his best articles are available on this website). Also in the news was a report that Governor Spitzer has taken what may be the first step in closing prisons and changing sentencing laws (#1). And he appointed a new head of Parole, George E. Alexander (#5). Many people who have been working hard for many years on criminal justice issues have his ear. We must take advantage of this opportunity. In this issue you will read about the ways in which several members of Prison Action Network are taking action. Let us support one another. One way is to gather signatures for the Work Release Petition attached. Another is to write our representatives when we are pleased with what they have done, as well as when we are unhappy. In every letter we can ask for something more. Let’s keep fanning those winds of change!
Articles:
1. CLOSING PRISONS - Governor proposes commission to study prison closing and changing sentencing law.
2. CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN THE SPITZER ERA - Brian Fischer, Robert Gangi, Michael Jacobson and Rev Vivian Nixon speak at panel discussion
3. FAMILY EMPOWERMENT DAY THINK TANK MEETINGS - People who want change are needed, to be part of a strategy meeting. Albany, Buffalo and NYC meetings are scheduled. YOU are invited.
4. LETTER TO ELIOT SPITZER'S TRANSITION TEAM - "Americans must realize that convicted felons are not incurably corrupt or violent, that they are as capable as anybody else of learning from their mistakes and appreciating the value of a stable social order."
5. PAROLE BOARD APPOINTEES - George B. Alexander has been nominated to serve as Chairman of the State Board of Parole and Chief Executive Officer of the New York State Division of Parole.
6. (PICS) POST INCARCERATION SYNDROME AND RELAPSE - a set of symptoms that are claimed to be present in many currently and recently released prisoners that are caused by being subjected to prolonged incarceration in environments of punishment with few opportunities for education, job training, or rehabilitation
7. REENFRANCHISEMENT CONVERSATION - "Restoration of voting is the KEY IDEA; the practical solution to all of the problems the public has "heard" about.."
8. SENATE BILLS PENDING - merit time bill that includes lifers; bill to provide for discharge from parole consideration, even for lifers; bill to allow formerly incarcerated people to get barbering and cosmetology licenses; bill that would give tax incentives to employers that hire the formerly incarcerated
9. THE SQUARE FETTER - "Malus Chronos, Lord Supreme..Of everything that binds, Sandman of sepulchral dreams, Lord of all archontic minds." Part 2 in a serialization.
10. SUPPORT MEETINGS - meet people who understand; in Albany, Buffalo, Poughkeepsie, and Schenectady
11. TELEPHONE JUSTICE CAMPAIGN WINS SECOND VICTORY! - Families win victory in court of appeals on prison telephone challenge
12. TRANSPORTATION TO PRISONS - from Albany/Troy, Buffalo, Capital District; and through The Ride Board
13. WHAT WE NEED - "nothing of any lasting import was ever accomplished in any significant battle against systemic oppression without hard work, unity, dedication, struggle, sacrifice, and more hard work"
14. WORDS FROM INSIDE - “Sending Out Love! Builds Bridges.”
1. CLOSING PRISONS
Spitzer Seeks Panels to Study Prison Closings and Sentencing Laws
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE [excerpts from The New York Times article:]
ALBANY, Feb. 2 - Moving to reverse decades of expansion, Gov. Eliot Spitzer is proposing a commission to study closing some of New York State's dozens of prisons. ...Assistants to the governor said he would also create, through an executive order, a second commission to study changes to sentencing laws. Such measures have helped shrink inmate ranks in other states and could in New York, too. ...Mr. Spitzer hopes to replace the state-subsidized employment on which upstate New York depends with private-sector jobs and investment that could secure its future down the road. ...But a powerful alliance of upstate lawmakers and correction officers' unions guard their constituents' and members' state-financed jobs and are likely to resist any effort to downsize the system. ...Under current law, before the state can close a prison it must give a year's notice to employees, and officials are required to explore options for converting prisons to other uses, such as low-cost housing. "In response to lobbying from the local upstate towns and the correction officers' union, the Legislature has made it much more difficult for the executive to close prisons, even after a time of significant decline in the population," said Robert Gangi, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, an advocacy group for inmates. Both Mr. Spitzer and his staff have also stressed that no closings are imminent and that the creation of the commission itself, which would be wrapped into the state budget, must still past muster with the Legislature.
2. "CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN THE SPITZER ERA"
A conference presented in the morning of February 15 by the Center for NY City Affairs, Milano The New School of Management and Urban Policy and The Correctional Association of NY - reported by Tana Agostini
Acting Commissioner Fischer gave a series of staggering statistics* interspersed with more personal commentary than party liners. Most striking were his stated goals of increasing programming including education, his frank commentary that the majority of parole revocations (38% return in three years) are due to lack of support services for parolees and that his job, simply put, is to prepare inmates for release. Also noteworthy was his specific reference to program creation for those with life without parole. As the Superintendent of Sing Sing, Mr. Fischer ran one of the few maximum security prisons that provided higher education, in spite of Pataki's cutbacks, as well as alternative rehabilitation programs in art and music. He stated his commitment to working with the Dept. of Mental Health to improve treatment for the mentally ill inmate population and referred to new initiatives that are underway on their behalf. AC Fischer will be participating in the Commissions formed by Governor Spitzer to look into potential prison closures and alterative uses for such facilities, changes in sentencing laws, and a second look at work release as a transitional program. His closing remarks were that safe and secure facilities for staff and inmates is his first responsibility but that his goal is to encourage a prison environment where new opportunities for inmates to develop new skills and interests can flourish.
Bob Gangi, Executive Director of the Correctional Association of New York, a non-profit organization dedicated to analyzing and recommending policy to the Department of Corrections, spoke nearly exclusively on his number one priority, the reinstatement of higher education, not only as a moral imperative but as a practical, financial, and common sense approach to reducing recidivism. AC Fischer concurred and made the remark that while it is his goal to provide higher education, funding must exist to support it. Michael Jacobson, Dir. of the Vera Institute of Justice, quoted figures to show that the money saved by closing prisons could support higher education without any increase in funding. Rev.Vivian Nixon, director of the College and Community Fellowship, also presented a slate of information and statistics that supported higher education for incarcerated persons and ultimately it was the theme of the day. Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry was unable to attend.
*Statistics that AC Fischer included were 63,500 inmates incarcerated today, down 8100 from 1999. 36,312 for violent crimes against people, 13,928 for drug offenses, and 8,000 have diagnosed mental health problems which is up 1,000 from 1999. The average sentence is 75 months, the average time in prison for drug offenders is 31 months, almost half of inmates have been in prison before. 62% of all inmates come from the five boroughs of New York and the surrounding counties of Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester and Rockland. 48% of inmates entering the system today are Afro-American, 26% Hispanic and 24% are White. Last year 26,000 inmates were released; research figures indicate that 38% return to state prison within three years.
(The following was added by Judith Brink:)
Jo Ann Page, President of the Fortune Society, was in the audience and mentioned several things that Governor Spitzer can do with a stroke of the pen**.
Make Medicaid enrollment possible before release, so that there is no gap in medical coverage. In many cases, Medicaid would be suspended upon incarceration, not terminated, and just prior to release it would be reinstated.
Provide mandatory government-issued ID immediately upon release.
Exempt indigent people from the fees they must pay for fines, fees, surcharges, etc. involved in their incarceration and parole.
Give the vote to parolees.
Require the NYS Dept of Health to monitor DOCS medical care.
**(Perhaps we should use OUR pens to put pressure on him to do these things: Eliot Spitzer,State Capitol, Albany, NY 12224, 518-474-8390. For email, you can visit his website at www.state.ny.us/governor and click the 'Contact the Governor' link. For Information on Legislation: Session Information page at public.leginfo.state.ny.us).
3. FAMILY EMPOWERMENT DAY THINK TANK MEETINGS - HELP WANTED
People who want change are needed, to be part of a strategy meeting.
The Otisville Lifers have called for a number of Think Tank events around the state to begin planning for (or not...) FED3. These will be informal gatherings of interested people for the purpose of evaluating FED2 and deciding whether to move forward with another event of its kind. All who are interested may attend as many of the Think Tanks as desired, whether or not they attended either of the previous FEDs. Each Think Tank meeting will begin with a viewing of the FED2 documentary film produced by Melis Birder, and continue with an evaluation of FED2, a discussion of the need, or not, for another similar event (FED3), and if, where and when to have such a meeting.
Reports from all the meetings will be presented to the FED Core Group who will communicate the results through Building Bridges, and begin the planning stage of FED3 if there is sufficient interest in having another one.
An Albany Think Tank meeting has been scheduled for Monday March 19 at 7pm, at the Unitarian Church, 405 Washington Ave. Please contact Judith at 518/ 482 2029 or prisonaction@hotmail.comfor more info or to register.
A Buffalo Think Tank Meeting will take place Saturday, March 3, 2:00-4:00pm, 103 Fernhill Avenue. Please contact Karima at 716-834-8438 or karimatells@yahoo.com.
A New York City meeting is scheduled for Thursday evening, March15 at 5:30 pm at a place to be announced. Please contact Sonny at 516 673-4106 or 347 543-0433 or drudertsonny@yahoo.com for details and to register.
4. LETTER TO ELIOT SPITZER'S TRANSITION TEAM
I have contact with remarkable men who have spent years, even decades reflecting on the serious crimes that led to their confinement, who have come to terms with anger and learned to fully acknowledge the implications of what they did. These men are highly civilized. They have attained a degree of self-knowledge that those of us on the outside rarely come to, and a patience that reflects extraordinary self-discipline. These are the men who lead inmate organizations, counseling younger prisoners on alternatives to violence, parenting from inside, and other crucially important issues. Once released they have a tremendous amount to offer society.
Americans must realize that convicted felons are not incurably corrupt or violent, that they are as capable as anybody else of learning from their mistakes and appreciating the value of a stable social order. As responsible workers, as teachers and counselors to youth at risk, as survivors of a potentially soul-destroying experience, they can be a precious resource. But again and again I hear of model prisoners, men admired by all, who are turned down by parole boards without anything like an adequate hearing -- and turned down not just once but three, four, even five times. Understandably these men, for all their strength of character, are at risk of succumbing once again to the cynicism and anger that are part of the air inmates breathe.
This must stop! Parole boards must be instructed to inform themselves fully about the characters and prison histories of the men they evaluate, not just their crimes. They must offer prospective parolees clear criteria for release, and encourage them by showing that meeting these criteria produces real results. Above all they need to recognize that bad men can become good men, and that keeping a good man down does no good to anybody.
---written by a DOCS volunteer
5. PAROLE BOARD APPOINTEES
Former governor Pataki appointed 6 new members to the Parole Board in June of 2006. Jennifer Arena, lacking the required credentials for the post*, has the shortest appointment of those, expiring in June of 2008.
In 2007, 5 members will reach the end of their terms: Guy R. Vizzie, Jr., on Feb 6, Livio Lazzari on May 4, William Crowe and Robert Dennison on August 31, and George C. Johnson on Dec. 31.
So far we have heard of only one Spitzer appointee: George B. Alexander has been nominated to serve as Chairman of the State Board of Parole** and Chief Executive Officer of the New York State Division of Parole.
Mr. Alexander currently serves as Director and Commissioner of the Erie County Department of Probation and Youth Detention Services. From 1993 to 2000, he served as Deputy Director in the Parole Violation Unit at the New York State Division of Parole. Prior to that, Mr. Alexander was a Senior Parole Officer and a Parole Revocation Specialist. Mr. Alexander received his B.A. from Buffalo State College.
As Chairman of the State Board of Parole and Chief Executive Officer of the New York State Division of Parole, Mr. Alexander's annual salary will be $120,800.
*259-b (2) stipulates a 4 yr college degree, and least 5 years of experience in one or more of the fields of criminology, administration of criminal justice, law enforcement, sociology, law, social work, corrections, psychology, psychiatry or medicine.
**What puzzles the editor is how Gov Spitzer can appoint someone to replace the current chairman, Robert Dennison, when his term does not expire until August 31? The only explanation that makes sense is that Mr. Dennison will remain on the board until August; Mr. Alexander will replace Guy Vizzi, whose term expired in February, and will become Chairman when Dennison leaves. Does anyone know if that’s correct?
6. (PICS) POST INCARCERATION SYNDROME AND RELAPSE
Terence T. Gorski [6147 Deltona Blvd., Spring Hill, FL 34606, 708 799 5000, www.tgorski.com] specializes in relapse prevention, managing chemically dependent offenders, and developing community-based teams for managing the problems of alcohol, drugs, violence, and crime. He has created a psychological diagnosis of PICS to identify a set of symptoms that he claims are present in many currently and recently released prisoners and are caused by being subjected to prolonged incarceration in environments of punishment with few opportunities for education, job training, or rehabilitation. He says, "since PICS is created by criminal justice system policy and programming in our well intentioned but misguided attempt to stop crime, the epidemic can be prevented and public safety protected by changing the public policies that call for incarcerating more people for longer periods of time, for less severe offenses, in more punitive environments that emphasize the use of solitary confinement, and eliminate or severely restrict prisoner access to educational, vocational, and rehabilitation programs while incarcerated. He recommends implementing policies that:
1. fund the training and expansion of community based addiction and mental health programs;
2. expand the role of drug and mental health courts that promote treatment alternatives to incarceration;
3. convert 80% of our correctional facilities into rehabilitation programs;
4. eliminate required long mandated minimum sentences;
5. institute universal prerelease programs for all offenders;
6. assure access to publicly funded programs for addiction and mental health treatment upon release.
--Information contributed by Chauncy V. Ramos.
7. REENFRANCHISEMENT CONVERSATION
The following is copied from a series of letters to Building Bridges from James Morse, who is arguing that NY reformers should unite behind the issue of re-enfranchisement, and that working for parole reform is putting the cart before the horse, so to speak. We invite your input to this conversation.
When the prison system becomes too big to control, "miscarriages of justice" are more or less routine. Justice preys upon weaker citizens to the point of producing the preconditions (recidivism, etc.) for its continued existence. The only solution for this problem is more democracy, that is, more political freedom for all citizens. Hence, the re-enfranchisement of prisoners. When the government chooses the electorate, as the case is now, there's less democracy for everyone. Re-enfranchisement means more democracy for everyone - - before it's too late.
The enlightened prison reformer discerns that it's now time to present a comprehensive and practical solution for public debate. Restoration of our voting rights is the KEY unifying idea whose time has come. Guys in here agree that restoration of our voting rights would change conditions over night -- literally. It's a no-brainer. Even publicly debating restoration has the power to prompt genuine reforms. NY reformers need to organize (a convention) around a strong idea that has a good track record. Restoration of voting rights is known to restore the good order that results from practicing the democracy that we preach. Thinking in unity and public debate promotes energy and vision--what's now lacking. Restoration of voting is the KEY IDEA; the practical solution to all of the problems the public has "heard" about.
For the majority of captives, the passage of decades and the false promises inherent of the penal system promotes magical visions: "All I need to do is get out and everything will be swell!" Meanwhile the data establishes that, in terms of job opportunities, housing, etc., most of us are ill-prepared to confront the daunting challenges of being at liberty, after decades and decades of lockdown. The parole board has a dismal record when it comes to foreseeing what "inmate" is going to stab a waiter to death (like Jack Henry Abbott) and all it takes is one such incident to derail a liberal parole policy.
8. SENATE BILLS PENDING
From CURE-NY--
Please note and support the Bills cited below.
Rudy Cypser
-
A merit time bill that includes lifers was sent to Sen. Montgomery's office last month. Right now it is being prepared by the Bill Drafting Committee and will be introduced by the Senator when it is completed.
Also, the Senate Bill, S2016 (see below), allowing discharge from parole consideration, even for lifers, is in committee and needs to move. If you support it, you could send a letter to each of the Senators on the NYS Senate Corrections Committee. To find, visit the Senate website: www.senate.state.ny.us
Also, two other bills deserve support, both in different committees. One is S820, which would allow formerly incarcerated people to get barbering and cosmetology licenses. Last year this bill got through the senate and assembly, but was vetoed by Pataki when it got to his desk. It should make it through this time. It is in the Consumer Protection Committee now. (Letters of support to: Charles Fuschillo 915 LOB, Albany 12247)
The other one is S2956, which provides tax incentives to employers that hire formerly incarcerated individuals. That one is in the Investigations and Government Operations Committee. (Letters of support to: George Winner, 814 LOB, Albany 12247)
Senate Bill 2016
January 30, 2007
Introduced by Sens. MONTGOMERY, DUANE, KRUEGER
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:
Section 1. Section 259-j of the executive law is REPEALED and a new section 259-j is added to read as follows:
§ 259-j. Discharge from parole and conditional release.
1. Where a determinate sentence is imposed for a violent felony offense as defined in section 70.02 of the penal law, if the board of parole is satisfied that an absolute discharge from parole or from conditional release is in the best interests of society, the board may grant such a discharge prior to the expiration of the full maximum term to any person who has been on unrevoked parole or conditional release for at least three consecutive years.
2. A merit termination of sentence may be granted to all other eligible persons after one year of presumptive release, parole or conditional release.
3. The division of parole must grant termination of sentence after three years of unrevoked parole to a person serving an indeterminate sentence for a class A felony offense defined in article two hundred twenty of the penal law, and must grant termination of sentence after two years of unrevoked parole to a person serving an indeterminate sentence for any other felony offense defined in article two hundred twenty or two hundred twenty-one of the penal law.
4. A discharge granted under this section shall constitute a termination of the sentence with respect to which it was granted. No such discharge shall be granted unless the board of parole is satisfied that the parolee, otherwise financially able to comply with an order of restitution and the payment of any mandatory surcharge previously imposed by a court of competent jurisdiction, has made a good faith effort to comply therewith.
5. § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.
9. THE SQUARE FETTER, continued. This is part 2 in the serialization.
© Copyright by James E. Morse 2005
THE GUARDIAN’S PRAYER (Poem from Malus Chronos – A Novella about the Prison Industrial Organism)
Malus Chronos*, Lord Supreme
Of everything that binds,
Sandman of sepulchral dreams,
Lord of all archontic minds.
Your reign within thy leaping walls:
Bestial total institute,
Demarcates Reprisal’s Sprawl,
Fetters tightly cellblock brutes.
Once within thy iron cage,
Exposed to durance vile,
Their life becomes an empty page,
Ignorance their style.
—Malus Chronos makes brutes cower;
Makes them love the things they hate/
Lord Supreme of bread and power,
Thy bounty is my fate—
Malus Chronos, idol gold,
Horologist of all Bad Times,
For thee I wield this Sacred Pole
To expiate their brutish crimes.
The sound of keys in turning locks
Is music to thine ears;
The ticking of infernal clocks
Tapping out the endless years.
From iron box to yellow lines,
Back and forth they slink;
The grand design of feeble minds
That totter on the brink.
—Malus Chronos makes brutes cower;
Makes them love the things they hate/
Lord Supreme of Bread and Power,
Thy bounty is my fate—
*Greek—Bad Times
Copies of the hand crafted, illustrated book are available for $4 through Prison Action Network.
10. SUPPORT MEETINGS
Albany: PFNY meeting at 7:00 pm every Monday at the Women’s Bldg, 79 Central Avenue. Please call ahead: Alison 518 453 6659
Buffalo: Groups for men and women meet separately on Thursdays, from 5:30-6:30pm at GROUP Ministries, Inc., 1333 Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo. These programs are FREE and confidential. For more information, call 716-539-1844.
Poughkeepsie: PFNY Support Group Room 306 of the Main Building of Family Partnership at 29 North Hamilton St. Poughkeepsie, NY. Meetings will be held on the 2nd and 4th Mondays of the month at 7pm.
The Citizens for Restorative Justice The Citizens for Restorative Justice meet the first Monday of the month, 6:30 to 8:00. The location changes so call ahead of time, 845-464-4736.
Schenectady: PFNY meeting at 7pm on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of every month at First United Methodist Church - 603 State Street - entrance on Chapel Street - behind MVP Building. Jeanette: 518 280 0354 anytime after 6pm.
Prison Families of New York has a new website, created to assist families with incarcerated individuals in New York State Correctional Facilities. There is information on support groups, policy recommendations, children of prisoners issues, visiting conditions, ride lists, and much more. Please visit the website and pass it on to others you may feel would most benefit from it. www.prisonfamiliesofnewyork.org
11. TELEPHIONE JUSTICE CAMPAIGN WINS SECOND VICTORY!
Families Win Victory In Court Of Appeals On Prison Telephone Challenge
High Court Allows Challenge to "Unlegislated Tax" on Poor Families to Move Forward
Albany, NY, February 20, 2007 - Today the Court of Appeals ruled that a constitutional challenge brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of New York family members who pay a grossly inflated rate to receive phone calls from their loved ones in state prisons must be allowed to move forward.
The lawsuit, Walton v. NYSDOCS and MCI, seeks an order prohibiting the State and MCI from charging exorbitant rates to the family members of prisoners to finance a 57.5% kickback to the State and money damages for the recipients of those calls. MCI charges these family members a 630% markup over regular consumer rates to receive a collect call from their loved ones, the only way possible to speak with them. The case was dismissed in 2004 by Judge George Ceresia of the Supreme Court of New York, Albany County, citing issues of timeliness and the Appellate Division affirmed that dismissal in 2006.
The Court of Appeals, New York's highest court, agreed to hear the case in July of 2006, and reversed the lower courts' decisions. In its opinion, the Court of Appeals held that the lower courts erred in dismissing plaintiffs' constitutional claims as untimely. The Court held today that plaintiffs acted reasonably in bringing their complaints to the Public Service Commission, the administrative body that regulates telephone rates, before bringing the case in State Court.
"We are thrilled with the Court's ruling" said Rachel Meeropol, the attorney handling the case for the Center for Constitutional Rights. "The family members and friends of prisoners in New York State have sought a ruling on the constitutionality of New York's prison telephone system for years. That day is now in sight."
Judge Pigott wrote the opinion for the Court. Judge Smith wrote a concurring opinion in which he agreed that plaintiffs' claims should move forward, but acknowledged that this decision was "influenced" by the fact that plaintiffs raised "substantial" constitutional claims. Judge Read dissented.
The Court remanded the case back to the Supreme Court, to rule on whether plaintiffs' Constitutional claims state a cause of action.
12. TRANSPORTATION TO PRISONS
From Buffalo:
VAN SERVICE TO WESTERN NY PRISONS: Convenient Transportation Services weekend (Saturday and Sunday) trips to Attica, Albion, Wende, Orleans, Wyoming, Groveland, Livingston (Saturday only), Lakeview, Collins, and Gowanda. The cost is $40-$50 for adults and $10 for children age 12 and younger requiring a seat. For more information call 716-605-3179.
From the Capital District:
Rides are offered by volunteers of the First Unitarian Universalist Society’s Justice Committee on weekdays only. Please contact us at 518 253-7533 if you need a ride.
From Albany/Troy:
The NEST prison shuttle schedule: Mt. McGregor, Washington, and Great Meadow Facilities on Sat, March 3 ($30 adults, $20 children), and the Coxsackie, Greene, and Hudson Correctional Facilities on Sat, March 10, and Sun., March 25 ($15 adults and $10 children), leaving Oakwood Ave Presbyt. Church parking lot, Troy at 7 AM, and Albany Greyhound Bus station at 7:15. Trip to the Utica Hub (Midstate, Marcy, Mohawk, Oneida) Sat, March 17 leaving shortly after 5 AM ($40 adults, $25 children). Call for reservations and information: Linda O'Malley 518- 273-5199.
13. WHAT WE NEED
by Bryce "Sonny" Rudert
For me, the highlights of the February 15th symposium in NYC sponsored by the NY City Bar Association entitled, "Restoring Fairness to Parole." were as follows:
1) The detailed description of ongoing parole board illegalities and abuses described by Vernon Manley, who until very recently served as an active parole commissioner. The abuses and illegalities Manley described include the absence of any type of formal training for parole commissioners, himself admittedly included, and his further admission that more often than not only one member of each parole board panel is actually participating in the interview; the others are instead thumbing through the folders of upcoming candidates--this "double abuse" indicates that the parole candidate in the hearing is harmed by the failure of board members to participate in the hearing as compelled by law and the scheduled candidates for upcoming hearings are also harmed, as Manley stated that this last-minute folder browsing is how the parole boards interpret the "meaningful review" of a parole candidate's folder prior to the hearing itself;
2) Judge Sheridan's call for Judicial oversight of the parole boards to ensure that they follow the existing mandates of law;
3) My own opportunity to briefly address the room, commend Judge Sheridan for the brave, groundbreaking integrity exhibited in his noteworthy Article 78 decisions and agree with his assessment, however further noting the need for immediate emergency relief for aging prisoners like Antonio Calderone, John Flynn and Carlos Lozada who have each already served over 30 years due to repeated unfair parole denials which are solely predicated upon their crimes of conviction.
Prior to this symposium, the most notable news that I'd encountered in the press regarding correctional policy in New York State was the fact that the upstate Republican prison-town power brokers were up in arms at the mere mention that Governor Spitzer wants an exploratory committee to determine if our taxpaying public might not be better served by shutting down several of this state's 70 existing prisons.
Just after this event, several of us shared the fact that the parole boards are by and large continuing exactly where they left off with the same old unfair and illegal practices of the previous Pataki administration (no doubt, surely continuing as well to engage in exactly the same serious illegalities and abuses described by Vernon Manley). Notably, Dalton Diaz, Earl Crutchfield and Len McRae were all denied parole (as Dalton and Earl had each previously been) based upon the "nature of the crime," despite folders brimming with compelling evidence of their rehabilitation over the course of their decades in prison, and also despite the large and vocal support of family, friends, and even former strangers--those men and women of goodwill and high moral integrity all across our state--who sent many letters in support of their parole.
And so we find ourselves asking: What do we need?
A) Based upon Vernon Manley's own detailed testimony before a roomful of jurists and officers of the court, as well as the public-at-large, we need the New York State Legislature to consider the ramifications of Manley's testimony and hold investigative hearings into the Division of Parole's repeated and ongoing failure to adhere to the clearly legislated statutory criteria which governs the parole process.
B) Based upon Judge Sheridan's call for judicial oversight of the parole process, as well as the increasingly numerous court decisions now echoing this sentiment, we need this state's higher courts to designate a judicial review committee to oversee the entire parole process.
C) Further, based upon the increasingly growing number of aging prisoners repeatedly unjustly denied parole for offense related factors, we need special and immediate emergency relief that will put these men and women on the front of the list to be released to parole supervision.
D) Based upon upstate New York's ill conceived and misdeveloped prison-based economy, we need genuine, open-forum, public debate: Should the primary role of corrections in New York State be the development and provision of economic stability for its distressed and changing rural communities? Here, I would submit that whenever the economic success of one sector of society is directly contingent upon the failed social policies of another, there is in place a recipe for disaster which perpetuates rather than "corrects" the social ills that it was created to address.
E) Based upon our collective experience with the issues at hand and the numerous misconceptions that fuel the fear that stokes the engines of the prison-based economy, we on the outside need to collectively step up our efforts to educate the public. We must also ensure that we keep the light shining Inside and step up our letter-writing efforts as well, not only voicing our support for community-ready parole candidates but also demonstrating our disgust and outrage whenever the parole boards completely disregard our support and instead unfairly deny parole to the worthy.
F) Lastly, based upon all of our collective wisdom, we have learned that the reward for complacency is always one thing only: more of the same. And so, to those still on the Inside: remember that creativity is your greatest resource. We must all invent new and creative ways to demonstrate that you are not going to be a willing participant in your continued unjust oppression--while also drawing positive attention to the continuing struggle for fairness and equity. Here, we must all remember that nothing of any lasting import was ever accomplished in any significant battle against systemic oppression without hard work, unity, dedication, struggle, sacrifice, and more hard work. Peace.
14. WORDS FROM INSIDE
I would like to share these Words of Wisdom, “Sending Out Love! Builds Bridges.” Joe Rudd 83A7286
I am proud to announce as of January of this year 2007, we have officially started a Lifers and Long Termers Organization here at Arthur Kill Prison. We are waiting for permission and approval to use the GOVERNMENTAL EDUCATION ORGANIZATION (G.E.O.) HONORABLE NAME.
We already proudly had our first guest speaker, the Honorable Charlie Sullivan, founder of International C.U.R.E. (Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants) in Washington, DC. He stopped at the prison on his way to the United Nations, where he spoke for 2 days along with Rudy and Betty Cypser from C.U.R.E. NY. We will do our best here at Arthur Kill to follow in the Honorable Footsteps of G.E.O. and the Otisville Lifers Group.
Love! Prayers and Best! Best! Wishes to All, Your Good Friend, Joe Rudd
Sunday, February 18, 2007
From the Editor:
I write this to share my experience attending the following discussion. If you were there and have something to add or correct, please send to prisonaction@hotmail.com, and I will update the report below.
The discussion, "Restoring Fairness to Parole," which was held at the House of the Association on West 44th Street in NYC on the evening of February 15th and sponsored by the New York Bar Association, was interesting but did not provide any new (to me) information about the topic.
John Caher, staff writer for the New York Law Journal, spoke about how he first became aware of the unfair parole policy by covering the Second Circuit Court and hearing the ever increasing multitude of parole appeals, all saying essentially the exact same thing, and then hearing Judge Sheridan's ruling in the ground-breaking Chan decision, in which he cited a pattern of unfair decisions that suggested the parole board had clearly "gotten the message" from the Pataki administration, and ruled in favor of a re-hearing for Mr. Chan, further directing the board to base its decision on permissable factors only and to take into consideration Mr. Chan's considerable rehabilitative accomplishments in prison. At the time, this fair and brave decision was a lone voice in the wilderness.
Judge Sheridan was, in fact, also in attendance this evening and he spoke about this clearly emergent pattern of illegal parole decisions, and the fact that the parole boards were in essence duplicating the judges' role in the sentencing process while disregarding their intent and usurping their authority as well. Besides the fact that this blatant abuse was way outside the bounds of their legal discretionary authority, Judge Sheridan also pointed out that the parole commissioners lacked the necessary training to perform such judicial/sentencing functions. He mentioned that there is nothing in the law that says the "nature" or inherent "seriousness" of any crime precludes parole release (as the board in Chan had held).
Vernon Manley, a former parole commissioner who sat on many parole boards, gave an insider's view of the entire dysfunctional parole mess of the last 12 years, which totally supported our very worst suspicions of what we'd already witnessed from our outsider's perspective: The boards get very little training; and, out of the two or three sitting members at any given parole hearing, those who are not asking the interview questions are skimming through the file of the next case, paying little if any attention to the parole candidate in front of them. He also complained about the rude, bordering on abusive, manner in which many board members address parole candidates.
Eve Rosahn, Supervising Attorney of the Legal Aid Society's Parole Revocation Defense Unit which provides representation for people whose parole has been revoked, spoke about the many people paroled to situations that are actually a set-up for failure, such as the NYC shelters, where for people with substance abuse issues, it is almost impossible to not fall back into addiction and a related criminal life style. She mentioned that Governor Spitzer had amended the laws that govern parole violation appeals, and now instead of holding people at Rikers Island, they are sent back upstate to wait for their hearing (yet they must legally still be presumed innocent unless or until a final hearing adjudicates otherwise), and the revocation hearings themselves are now conducted BY VIDEO!!
Al O'Conner, a defense lawyer for the NYS Defenders Association, pointed out that this present administration must be held accountable for fair parole policies, that judicial oversight should be ennacted to ensure compliance with the legislative criteria--and Judge Sheridan strongly concurred with this assessment.
William Eric (EZ) Waters, who came before three parole boards, spoke about his own experiences as a jailhouse lawyer and his personal experiences at the parole hearings. Unfortuantely, because of time limitations he never mentioned what the Osbourne Association (which he represents) is presently doing in the area of parole reform.
At the conclusion of the guests' presentations there was a period of questions, and many in the audience who were either on parole or who were there to get info for others facing a parole hearing soon, asked very good questions and made some poignent statements (I had the sense that although the people on the panel were all very enthusiastic about reforming parole practices, many of them are blind to the racism that pervades their own speech and actions, even in the context of this meeting, and several comments pointed to that fact).
The morning discussion I also attended, "Criminal Justice in the Spitzer Era," presented by the Center for NY City Affairs, Milano The New School of Management and Urban Policy and The Correctional Association of NY had some interesting bits of information, especially for those of us wondering what we can do to bring about the much needed positive changes in policy. Jo Ann Page, President of the Fortune Society, was in the audience and told us that there are presently several things that Governor Spitzer can do with a stroke of the pen. I believe we should use our pens to put pressure on him to do these things:
1. Make Medicaid enrollment possible before release, so that there is no gap in medical coverage. In many cases, Medicaid would be suspended upon incarceration, not terminated, and just prior to release it would be reinstated.
2. Provide mandatory government-issued ID immediately upon release.
3. Exempt indigent people from the fees they must pay for fines, fees, surcharges, etc. involved in their incarceration and parole.
4. Give the vote to parolees.
5. Require the NYS Dept of Health to monitor DOCS medical care.
* Vernon Manley in the evening session suggested restoring Work Release programs to presently ineligable prisoners as another stroke of the pen action that could immediately be taken by Governor Spitzer.
The discussion, "Restoring Fairness to Parole," which was held at the House of the Association on West 44th Street in NYC on the evening of February 15th and sponsored by the New York Bar Association, was interesting but did not provide any new (to me) information about the topic.
John Caher, staff writer for the New York Law Journal, spoke about how he first became aware of the unfair parole policy by covering the Second Circuit Court and hearing the ever increasing multitude of parole appeals, all saying essentially the exact same thing, and then hearing Judge Sheridan's ruling in the ground-breaking Chan decision, in which he cited a pattern of unfair decisions that suggested the parole board had clearly "gotten the message" from the Pataki administration, and ruled in favor of a re-hearing for Mr. Chan, further directing the board to base its decision on permissable factors only and to take into consideration Mr. Chan's considerable rehabilitative accomplishments in prison. At the time, this fair and brave decision was a lone voice in the wilderness.
Judge Sheridan was, in fact, also in attendance this evening and he spoke about this clearly emergent pattern of illegal parole decisions, and the fact that the parole boards were in essence duplicating the judges' role in the sentencing process while disregarding their intent and usurping their authority as well. Besides the fact that this blatant abuse was way outside the bounds of their legal discretionary authority, Judge Sheridan also pointed out that the parole commissioners lacked the necessary training to perform such judicial/sentencing functions. He mentioned that there is nothing in the law that says the "nature" or inherent "seriousness" of any crime precludes parole release (as the board in Chan had held).
Vernon Manley, a former parole commissioner who sat on many parole boards, gave an insider's view of the entire dysfunctional parole mess of the last 12 years, which totally supported our very worst suspicions of what we'd already witnessed from our outsider's perspective: The boards get very little training; and, out of the two or three sitting members at any given parole hearing, those who are not asking the interview questions are skimming through the file of the next case, paying little if any attention to the parole candidate in front of them. He also complained about the rude, bordering on abusive, manner in which many board members address parole candidates.
Eve Rosahn, Supervising Attorney of the Legal Aid Society's Parole Revocation Defense Unit which provides representation for people whose parole has been revoked, spoke about the many people paroled to situations that are actually a set-up for failure, such as the NYC shelters, where for people with substance abuse issues, it is almost impossible to not fall back into addiction and a related criminal life style. She mentioned that Governor Spitzer had amended the laws that govern parole violation appeals, and now instead of holding people at Rikers Island, they are sent back upstate to wait for their hearing (yet they must legally still be presumed innocent unless or until a final hearing adjudicates otherwise), and the revocation hearings themselves are now conducted BY VIDEO!!
Al O'Conner, a defense lawyer for the NYS Defenders Association, pointed out that this present administration must be held accountable for fair parole policies, that judicial oversight should be ennacted to ensure compliance with the legislative criteria--and Judge Sheridan strongly concurred with this assessment.
William Eric (EZ) Waters, who came before three parole boards, spoke about his own experiences as a jailhouse lawyer and his personal experiences at the parole hearings. Unfortuantely, because of time limitations he never mentioned what the Osbourne Association (which he represents) is presently doing in the area of parole reform.
At the conclusion of the guests' presentations there was a period of questions, and many in the audience who were either on parole or who were there to get info for others facing a parole hearing soon, asked very good questions and made some poignent statements (I had the sense that although the people on the panel were all very enthusiastic about reforming parole practices, many of them are blind to the racism that pervades their own speech and actions, even in the context of this meeting, and several comments pointed to that fact).
The morning discussion I also attended, "Criminal Justice in the Spitzer Era," presented by the Center for NY City Affairs, Milano The New School of Management and Urban Policy and The Correctional Association of NY had some interesting bits of information, especially for those of us wondering what we can do to bring about the much needed positive changes in policy. Jo Ann Page, President of the Fortune Society, was in the audience and told us that there are presently several things that Governor Spitzer can do with a stroke of the pen. I believe we should use our pens to put pressure on him to do these things:
1. Make Medicaid enrollment possible before release, so that there is no gap in medical coverage. In many cases, Medicaid would be suspended upon incarceration, not terminated, and just prior to release it would be reinstated.
2. Provide mandatory government-issued ID immediately upon release.
3. Exempt indigent people from the fees they must pay for fines, fees, surcharges, etc. involved in their incarceration and parole.
4. Give the vote to parolees.
5. Require the NYS Dept of Health to monitor DOCS medical care.
* Vernon Manley in the evening session suggested restoring Work Release programs to presently ineligable prisoners as another stroke of the pen action that could immediately be taken by Governor Spitzer.
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