We post latebreaking news or announcements here during the month. Please scroll down to read Building Bridges' March issue.
POSTED 3/25 BY THE HUDSON RIVER PRESBYTERY
Job Opportunity: Prison Partnership Coordinator
Application Deadline: April 4 2011
The Prison Partnership Coordinator ("the Coordinator") position has three broad objectives; to make the churches of the Hudson River Presbytery aware of the morally bankrupt and financially disastrous nature of the New York State Judicial and Prison Systems; to encourage hands-on ministries to prisons and prisoners within local church communities; and to develop and implement a systematic and broad program of advocacy to encourage legislation toward a more just, equitable and prudent criminal justice system.
NOTICE: The position is currently funded for only one year and may not be continued if additional funding is not secured.
The Coordinator will accomplish the above objectives through:
• Creating -taking these broad objectives and creating or proposing specific initiatives to put them into practice.
• Communicating -ensuring that ideas generated in one part of the Partnership are spread throughout the Presbytery. This may entail
Putting information, programs, and contacts on the HRP website.
Spreading good ideas from one congregation or person to many through email, personal visits and area meetings.
Developing, maintaining, and communicating through email and snail mail lists information about the criminal justice system.
Preparing a monthly "newsletter" summarizing and encouraging activities of prison work/ministry.
Following key legislative and regulatory issues and identifying ones where specific advocacy initiatives could be effective; then coordinating such initiatives throughout the presbytery.
• Coordinating -ensuring that the activities of all parts of the Presbytery relating to prison work/ministry are coordinated with one another, so we neither reinvent the wheel nor misapply resources.
Some important skills/background:
Committed Christian
Demonstrated knowledge of and passion for prison ministry
College degree preferred
Skilled with computer technology and research
Very good verbal and writing skills
Team player
Able to communicate in the language of faith, and the relationship of faith to prison work
Have own car and a willingness to travel
Part time: 19 hours per week, May 1, 2011 –April 30, 2012.
Salary: $20,000 per year
Vouchered travel expense up to $1,000
Resume must be received by noon on April 4, 2011
Email submissions only to: Rev. Chris Shelton chris@hudrivpres.org
Presbytery of Hudson River
655 Scarborough Road
Scarborough, NY 10510
POSTED 3/18 by The New York Civil Liberties Union and the Prisoners’ Rights Project of The Legal Aid Society
We are investigating how DOCS ion scan searches affect families and friends who visit their loved ones in prison. Have you been scanned? If so, please tell us about it.
Email: ionscanproject@nyclu.org
or
Call: Caroline at (212) 577-3450
BUILDING BRIDGES, MARCH 2011
Dear Reader,
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! for the generous donations so many of you continued to send during the past month. Building Bridges is no longer in crisis. Thank you so much for showing your support for those less able to financially support us to the level they would wish.
Thanks also to the many people who sent copies of their parole denials. We are open to receiving more. It’s one thing to hear about them; it’s another to read the reports themselves. The most disturbing ones were from people who were convicted of crimes which statistically have a low recidivism rate, who were acknowledged by the parole board to have shown remorse, excellent institutional records and lots of support from the community, yet the denial repeats in lurid detail the facts of the crime and says that to release someone who had committed such a crime would "so deprecate the serious nature of the instant offense as to undermine respect for the law". Most upsetting, which is why the SAFE Parole Act addresses it, is the complete absence in almost every one of the documents we received, of any suggestions as to what the person could do in order to overcome that obstacle. When there was a suggestion, it was something like “continue to focus on positive goals". The question is, “for how long? for what purpose?” People need to be rewarded for good behavior. All of us do. Not to be rewarded is demoralizing and in the case of denying parole to a person with years of good behavior and realistic plans for the future, the parole board is seen to be itself undermining respect for the law.
Please be well, keep the faith, share the news, and for everyone's sake, get involved!
Summaries of Articles
1. Actions, events, and meetings are listed geographically and chronologically, so you can easily check for those in your area at times you are free. Three legislative advocacy days are listed (under Actions). These are excellent opportunities to get comfortable talking to legislators. If you support the S.A.F.E. Parole Act, you really ought to attend one of them. Winning over legislators will be an important part of our success.
2. Bob Gangi, former Exec. Dir. of C.A. is moving on, not to retire, but to take the position of Senior Policy Advocate at the Urban Justice Center. On Monday, April 4th, he will begin work there on justice related issues like the questionable arrest policies of the NYC Police Department. He looks forward to having contact, professional and/or personal, with many of you in the future.
3. Bronx Community Solutions - Your organization is invited to participate in the Bronx Reentry Community Forum and Resource Fair: “I’m Home ... What’s Next?” on Saturday, May 7, by hosting a resource table, contributing items for door prizes, or by bringing participants or students from your program.
4. Formerly Incarcerated People’s Movement - A gathering of formerly incarcerated persons began efforts to launch a campaign against the New Jim Crow. We marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, met with state legislators, and began organization building. We will be doing the same on the east coast. There were people there from around the country. You can see some video footage on www.YouTube.com/allthingsharlem
5. In Your Face heads to Washington D.C., on foot! - Readers can keep informed about the In Your Face WALK 2 WASHINGTON on the In Your Face Movement FaceBook pages, where you can also read the numerous write-ups they've received.
6. NYS Parole Reform Campaign Report - The latest organizations to sign a letter in support of the SAFE Parole Act are Exodus Transitional Community, National H.I.R.E. Network, and the Sylvia Rivera Law Project. Campaign members helped design a logo for the Campaign's Thousand Kites campaign website, soon to come online.
7. NYS Prisoner Justice Network - Everyone is invited to any of their series of regional and local meetings (listed in the article) and events taking place around the state to inform people in local communities about the statewide network, to share ideas and strategies for challenging and changing New York’s criminal INjustice system, and to encourage people to attend the Legislative Awareness Day for Prisoner Justice on May 3rd in Albany.
8. Parole News- January A1VO statistics show only one release on an initial hearing. A recent FOIL request asking the date and location of Parole Board Release Hearings and the names of the Parole Commissioners who were on each Board produces more questions than answers. You can read an article by Joel Stashenko in the NY Law Journal, in which he claims Parole Boards would lose authority under Cuomo, posted on rethinkingreentry.blogspot.com
9. Prison Media: Thread News! www.threadnews.org is a digital multimedia magazine available online and free of charge. Their first issue deals with the complexities of prison re-entry, as seen through the eyes of 35 year old recent parolee Manny Borras, a playwright, who must now navigate life on the outside. You can submit your stories for future consideration.
10. Think Outside the Cell: Their upcoming National Symposium on Sept. 24th will bring together national experts and policy makers, as well as hundreds of those who live in the long shadow of prison, whose voices and concerns have rarely been raised on the national stage. The Rev. Al Sharpton, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, and CNN journalist Soledad O’Brien will be among them. Anyone with prison in their backgrounds is encouraged to attend. An audience of more than 800 is anticipated.
[For copies of any document, article or legislation referred to, or condensed, in this issue, please email PAN with a request clearly stating the number of the article and the date it appeared -Ed.]
1. ACTIVISM: ACTIONS, EVENTS AND MEETINGS HAPPENING AROUND THE STATE THIS MONTH
ACTIONS
TO ALBANY FROM WHEREVER YOU LIVE
TUESDAY MARCH 22 DROP THE ROCK COALITION: PUT PEOPLE BEFORE PRISONS ADVOCACY DAY 2011
Cut Crime/Save Money/Build Communities
By closing empty prisons, repealing the Rockefeller Drug Laws, reforming parole policies, expanding work release and merit time, and investing in our neighborhoods.
If you’ve never talked to a legislator before, this is a good way get some training and experience. To sign up and find out about buses leaving from your area, contact Kirsten Escobar at the Correctional Association: 212 254 5700 or email kescobar@correctionalassociation.org.
TUESDAY, MARCH 22 ANNUAL JUVENILE JUSTICE COALITION ADVOCACY DAY
You must register by Tuesday March 15, 2011 to ensure a seat on the bus. NOTE: This year, the Juvenile Justice Coalition and the Drop the Rock Coalition (above) are sharing buses to Albany and a press event, but will be advocating for different things, and will have separate meetings with legislators. For this reason, they are keeping registration separate.
Advocacy Day provides the opportunity for young people, families, and community members impacted by the juvenile justice system to travel to Albany and meet with New York State legislators.
Please join us as we advocate for:
1. Downsizing New York's youth prison system;
2. Restoring funding to preventive programs for children and families and
3. Restoring state funding for runaway and homeless youth programs.
For more information or to reserve your seat on the bus, please fill out the form at: http://www.sites.google.com/site/jjadvocacyday/home. Please register using this form even if you previously sent an e-mail to someone at the Correctional Association stating you/your organization would like to participate.
Please note that all participants under 18 must have a signed valid permission slip to get on the bus [contact Jax Jackson if you need a blank one.] Juvenile Justice Coalition at (212) 254-5700 x 316
SAVE THE DATE: TUESDAY MAY 3 NYS PRISONER JUSTICE NETWORK
Legislative Awareness Day for Prisoner Justice: More Justice, Less Prisons
Prisoner justice activists from around the state will talk with legislators and their staffs about issues including parole reform, the implementation of the SHU bill, prison closures, and others. Participants will network with each other, be briefed on the issues, and go in delegations to pre-arranged meetings with legislators.
Join in this effort to show legislators and all New Yorkers that there is an alternative to the current culture of punishment and vengeance which keeps more than 57,000 people behind bars. It will demonstrate that there is a statewide constituency to change New York's harsh and unjust criminal justice policies. It will strengthen the statewide movement for prisoner justice by giving participants information about each others' issues and a chance to learn about and support each others' campaigns.
The day is free and everyone concerned about New York's prison system is invited to attend. Buses will be leaving from NYC. To reserve a seat or for more information, call the Albany Social Justice Center at 518-434-4037, email, or write to NYSPJN, 33 Central Ave, Albany NY 12210.
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BUFFALO: Every Wed from 5-6 pm Erie County Prisoners Rights Coalition demonstration in front of the Erie County Holding Center, corner of Delaware and Church, in Buffalo. Stand for ending abuse.
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EVENTS:
ALBANY events
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 7:00 PM SOLITARY CONFINEMENT AND ISOLATION IN FEDERAL PRISONS: CRUEL AND INHUMAN OR NECESSARY?
Federal Prosecutors can hold defendants before trial in solitary confinement under a legal device called Special Administrative Measures (SAMs). Pre-trial solitary confinement can last for years and impair the defendants’ mental ability to cooperate in their own defense or testify coherently.
Defendants may also be sentenced to isolation units called Communication Management Units (CMUs), in retaliation for expressing their constitutionally protected religious beliefs, unpopular political views, or for challenging rights violations in the federal prison system.
Rachel Meeropol Esq., Center for Constitutional Rights Staff Attorney
Aysha Ghani, Muslims For Justice, PhD Candidate, Stanford University
Jeanne Finley, Muslim Solidarity Committee
Marlene Jenkins, Mother of Tarik Shah - 33 Months in Solitary
Moderator - Stephen Gottlieb, Esq, Constitutional Law Professor, Albany Law School
For More Information Contact: Stephen F. Downs, Esq. at 518-767-0102 or swdowns68@aol.com
Location: Albany Law School, 80 New Scotland Ave
Rochester Moot Court Room (Room 209 in the Main Building)
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BRONX events
SATURDAY, MAY 7, 9:00AM – 4:00PM THE BRONX REENTRY WORKING GROUP
Features
I’m Home . . . What Next?
A Community Forum and Resource Fair
A FREE hands-on community forum for understanding what it takes to come home after incarceration.
Do you have questions about Bronx based parole, probation, and reentry programs?
Do you need someone to talk to about having a loved one in prison?
Join Bronx-based organizations and individuals who have successfully returned home after incarceration.
The day will include: 1. Keynote presentation 2. Panel of community members who have reentered from prison and jail. 3. Resource Fair and Lunch 4. Breakout sessions
For more information call either Pamela Valera 718-920-5682, pamela.valera@einstein.yu.edu or
Mandy Restivo 718-618-2495, mrestivo@courts.state.ny.us
Location: Bronx School for Law, Government, and Justice
244 East 163rd Street Bronx, NY
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MANHATTAN events
TRAINING SERIES BY PEOPLES' JUSTICE FOR COMMUNITY CONTROL AND POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY
Sun. Feb. 27, 2-5pm: Know Your Rights
Sun. Mar. 20, 2-5pm: Spring Cop Watch
** It is preferable, but not necessary, to attend both trainings. *
What Would Police Accountability Look Like?
for either: RSVP and specify which training(s) you wish to attend.**
Who Should Attend:
- Groups of 3-5 who wanna start Cop Watch teams.
- Folks who wanna learn about their rights when approached by the cops (esp. poc, youth, immigrants, trans and queer folks).
- Folks who are tired of watching police violence in their neighborhoods.
- Folks who wanna plug into PJ's work.
- Lawyers who want to help hold the NYPD accountable to NYC communities.
- Folks who wanna talk to their communities about issues they face.
Peoples' Justice / 212.614.5343 / www.peoplesjustice.org / info@peoplesjustice.org
LOCATION: Community Service Society, 105 E. 22nd St. at Park Ave., Rm 4A
6 or N Trains to 23rd Street
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SUNDAY, APRIL 3, 4–7 PM INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY & FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL AND FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC) in conjunction with The Riverside Church Prison Ministry
Meet and hear from Mumia’s new legal team: Christina Swarns, Esq., Director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), Criminal Justice Project, and Judith Ritter, Esq., Professor, Widener Law School in Wilmington, Delaware
4:00 – 5:00 pm.
Private reception $10 advance purchase of tickets required Call 212 330-8029 to order tickets
5:30–7:00 pm
Presentations by attorneys
FREE ADMISSION
Both Christina Swarns and Judith Ritter have argued before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals for Mumia. They are now formal co-counsel representing him in the ongoing appeal of his murder conviction and death sentence. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), as the premier legal organization in this country fighting for racial justice, has committed itself to “sweep the grave injustices embodied in this case into the dustbin of history.”
Limited space is available for reception. We suggest you order your tickets now.
Location: Riverside Church Rm 9T
120th St and Riverside Dr., Manhattan
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SAVE THE DATE: FRIDAY, MAY 6, 9:00AM – 10:30AM* OCCASIONAL SERIES ON REENTRY RESEARCH
The Use of Criminal Records in College Admissions Reconsidered
Marsha Weissman, PhD, Executive Director, Center for Community Alternatives
Discussants representing the worlds of policy and practice to be announced. RSVP to pri@jjay.cuny.edu
*Event will also be webcast live via the National Reentry Resource Center website.
“Generating conversation between researchers, policymakers, and practitioners in an effort to improve policy and practice.”
Location: Prisoner Reentry Institute, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
899 Tenth Avenue (b/w W. 58th and 59th Streets), Room 630.
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SAVE THE DATE: SAT. SEPT. 24 AT THE RIVERSIDE CHURCH: The Rev. Al Sharpton, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, and CNN journalist Soledad O’Brien will be among the participants at the upcoming national Think Outside the Cell symposium on issues affecting the incarcerated, the formerly incarcerated and their loved ones. (see more in article 10.)
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MEETINGS:
REGIONAL meetings:
A series of regional and local meetings and events around the state to inform people in local communities ABOUT THE NEW YORK STATE PRISONER JUSTICE NETWORK, to share ideas and strategies for challenging and changing New York’s criminal INjustice system, and to encourage people to attend the Legislative Awareness Day for Prisoner Justice on May 3rd in Albany. (see article 7 for list of places and dates.)
BUFFALO meetings
MONDAY, MARCH 28, 6:30-8:30PM PRISONERS ARE PEOPLE TOO! MONTHLY MEETING
Prisoners Are People Too is a justice advocacy initiative that meets monthly on selected Mondays in Buffalo. Most meetings feature a documentary film, related to some criminal justice issue or issue of prison reform, and one or more guest speakers who address that issue.
On Monday, March 28, our special guest speakers will be members of the strategy team that is spearheading plans for the upcoming May 3 Legislative Awareness Day in Albany. This special day of action, being planned by the NYS Prisoner Justice Network, will “…bring prisoner justice activists together from around the state to talk with legislators and their staffs about issues including parole reform, the implementation of the SHU bill (barring prisons from placing prisoners with psychiatric diagnoses in isolation), prison closures, and others.”
The meeting in Buffalo is one of several regional meetings being held around the state to inform and develop a constituency that is dedicated to changing the current culture that impacts more than 57,000 people behind bars in NYS, from one of punishment and retribution, to one of rehabilitation and reintegration.
The Circle of Supporters for Reformed Offenders and Friends of BaBa Eng are the sponsors of PRP2 programs. For further information, email Karima Amin or call 716-834-8438.
Location: Pratt-Willert Community Center, 422 Pratt Street, Buffalo
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MANHATTAN meetings
TUESDAYS FROM 1PM-4PM UPPER MANHATTAN REENTRY TASK FORCE DROP IN HOURS
WELCOME HOME! For individuals living in Manhattan with histories of convictions or incarceration who need assistance upon release and/or referrals to social service agencies, and other programming including employment and substance abuse.
Just come by and ask for Anisah Thompson, Reentry Aid (212. 360. 8747) or Debbie Boar, Reentry Task Force Coordinator (212.360.4131) • Debbie Boar / www.rethinkingreentry.blogspot.com
Services are free of charge / Health insurance is not required / No age requirement / No income requirement / Spanish-speaking staff
Harlem Community Justice Center **
170 East 121st Street • (6, 4, 5 to 125th Street)
**NOTE: we are located in a courthouse. Please be prepared to walk through the metal detectors
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SUPPORT GROUP MEETINGS:
ALBANY: Every Monday 7-8:30 pm PRISON FAMILIES OF NY Support Group Meetings Alison 518-453-6659
Every Tuesday at 6pm P-MOTIONS (Progressive Men Operating Towards Initiating Opportunities Now) For information call Malik at 518 445-5487.
BROOKLYN:
Every Wednesday at 5:30pm VOCAL PAROLEES ORGANIZING PROJECT. For more info call 917 676-8041
LONG ISLAND: Tuesday April 12 PRISON FAMILIES ANONYMOUS (PFA) Support Group will host a regional meeting with the NYS Prisoner Justice Network, and on the 26th there will be a support group meeting, both at 7:30pm. Barbara: 631- 943-0441 or Sue: 631-806-3903 Deer Park, NY
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2. MESSAGE FROM BOB GANGI, FORMER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE CORRECTIONAL ASSOCIATION
On Friday, 3/11, after 29 years in the position – in my case, longevity did have advantages – I will step down as the CA’s executive director. As you know from our previous announcement, Soffiyah Elijah, a skilled and experienced advocate, will assume the organization’s helm and I look forward to supporting her as she leads the CA in its continuing and critical efforts to improve and reform the criminal justice system.
I also look forward to having contact, professional and/or personal, with many of you in the future. I will move on, not retire, to take the position of Senior Policy Advocate at the Urban Justice Center. On Monday, April 4th, I will begin work there on justice related issues like the questionable arrest policies of the NYC Police Department. My new contact information will be: rpagangi@gmail.com and 917-327-7648.
In concluding, I refer to my previous message sent to CA friends and supporters some time ago. These words, meaningful then, still very much apply:
I will always be proud of what we at the CA, collaborating often with like-minded allies, have been able to achieve in improving the criminal justice system and making a better world particularly for some of the most vulnerable persons among us. And I will always feel an enormous sense of gratitude and appreciation for all the wonderful people who worked and played with me, who supported and challenged me, who helped me by diverse means to make my way, through happy times and hard times, over the last three decades.
Thank you all, and a heartfelt salute to you, for being there for me and for the cause. - Bob Gangi
3. BRONX COMMUNITY SOLUTIONS INVITES COMMUNITY REENTRY ORGANIZATIONS TO PARTICIPATE
Your organization is invited to participate in the Bronx Reentry Community Forum and Resource Fair: “I’m Home ... What’s Next?” on Saturday, May 7, by hosting a resource table, contributing items for door prizes, or by bringing participants or students from your program. The event will be from 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM at the Bronx School for Law, Government, and Justice, located at 244 East 163rd Street.
You will need to register by April 5, 2011, by filling out a form detailing your organization’s commitment. You will receive a confirmation by April 11, 2011. Please email Mandy Restivo for the form or call her at 718-218-2495.
The Bronx Reentry Working Group is a locally-based coalition of academic-community partners, policy-makers, reentry professionals, and residents committed to addressing the social and health disparities of Bronx residents with a history of criminal justice involvement. There is no cost to you or your organization to participate in this event.
4. FORMERLY INCARCERATED PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT HOLDS INITIAL ORGANIZING MEETING IN MONTGOMERY ALABAMA
Group of formerly incarcerated people organize to turn around direction of prison system.
By Scott Johnson • March 3, 2011 Montgomery, AL. Article can be found at: Montgomery Advertiser
They have turned around their own lives, and now they want to turn around the direction of the U.S. prison system. That is part of the message being presented by a group of formerly incarcerated people from across the country that employs the slogan "Serving our Country after Serving our Time."
Dubbed the Formerly Incarcerated & Convicted People Movement, it is the first time the group has gathered in one location, and the choice of Montgomery and Selma was no accident. "It is like our path was cut in the civil rights movement, and we are just bringing it back where it started," said Dorsey Nunn, a rights advocate and former inmate from San Francisco who helped organize the meeting.
The group met Monday in Montgomery to discuss strategy. Members marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma on Tuesday and met with state leaders at the State House on Wednesday.
The Rev. Kenneth Glasgow of Dothan helped organize the gathering. Glasgow is the founder of The Ordinary People Society, an outreach group. Glasgow and group members spoke with legislators Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb and Gov. Robert Bentley. Glasgow said the formerly incarcerated bring a valuable voice to discussions about prison reform. "When they use us (as a resource), they are talking to experts by experience -- those who have been there, done that," Glasgow said.
Group members emphasize their focus on public service, and they visited an alternative school in Selma on Tuesday as part of a gang- prevention effort. Glasgow said the group also plans to work with victim rights groups to help make amends for crimes.
In addition, they hope to change some public policy, and reform the way the nation's prison systems operate. To stress the importance of their cause, members point to issues such as the cost of prison overcrowding and how barriers to re-entering society might make felons more likely to return to crime.
Susan Burton created A New Way of Life, a Los Angeles re-entry program, in 1998. She said her drug and alcohol addictions led to six trips to prison, with her last release in 1996. Burton said the time has come for like-minded people to unite on the issue of prison reform. "We have no other way to go but to get together and figure it out," said Burton, who was named a CNN "Top 10 Hero" for 2010.
Malik Aziz, founder of the National Exhoodus Council, said the group wants to be an active partner with law enforcement without alienating those who still are incarcerated. "We want to be a community partner -- a legitimate, recognized partner (with law enforcement). We won't be an informer. That is not what our relation with the police is," said Aziz, a former gang leader from Philadelphia.
Many of the group members talked about the large numbers of prisoners being released back into society. More than 700,000 prisoners have been released from state and federal custody each year from 2005 to 2009, the most recent year for which the U.S. Department of Justice has gathered statistics. Many of those people will return to poor economic conditions on top of the barriers to their re-integration into society, said Eddie Ellis of New York. "There's been no real discussion of what to do with those people," said Ellis, co-founder of the Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions at the City University of New York's Medgar Evers College.
Gabriel Sayegh, New York director of the Drug Policy Alliance, said prison reform is a non-partisan issue. Sayegh pointed out that critics on both sides of the political aisle have called for prison reform, including Newt Gingrich and the conservative group Right on Crime. "There is widespread recognition that what we've got has failed," said Sayegh, who was part of a group of supporters who joined the gathering but are not formerly incarcerated. The Drug Policy Alliance, a nonprofit organization with a stated goal of ending the War on Drugs, helped fund the gathering.
Nunn said the three-day gathering was a success because it was the first time it has happened. He said the next one will be in Los Angeles and will be even bigger as group members recruit other activists. "It will be double or triple the size of the people we had here," Nunn said.
There are videos at www.youtube.com/allthingsharlem
The convention in Montgomery will be followed by another gathering in Los Angeles, slated for November 11, 2011.
5. THE IN YOUR FACE MOVEMENT' BEGAN THEIR WALK TO WASHINGTON ON SUNDAY 3/13
The In Your Face walk to DC, which began on Sunday, March 13, is intending to make a huge impact on thousands of people as they journey through New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Washington. They are walking to spread awareness on a larger scale; causing people to look, think and then take action. It will send a message to the masses and our incarcerated loved ones alike that we haven't forgotten about the oppressed housed behind the prison walls and that we too are aware of the 'true' agenda of the Prison Industry.
6. NYS PAROLE REFORM CAMPAIGN MOVES FORWARD ON SEVERAL FRONTS
The NYS Parole Reform Campaign is reaching out to all people who have been victims, including those who are never asked their opinion. Many people who commit crimes have been victims preciously. In fact self-preservation may have been their motivation. There are victims’ groups who focus on rehabilitation and we want to find them and work with them. We are committed to creating a voice for victims, because we recognize that currently all they can make statements about is the impact the crime had on them. What's important to many victims is will they be safe once their offender is released. In order to comment on that they will need access to more information than is currently allowed. The SAFE Parole Act gives them access if their offender gives permission. How many readers have been a victim in the past? We'd like to hear from you.
We support the Correctional Association’s Women In Prison Project which represents women who have been on both sides: incarcerated for crimes connected with being victims. CA's Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act allows judges to give lower sentences for survivors convicted of crimes and, in some cases, send survivors to alternative-to-incarceration programs instead of prison. It would also require the parole board to consider the impact abuse had on the crime when deciding whether to release an incarcerated person. All of the above support our message that the criminal justice system does not have to be driven by retribution, but can be better served by reintegrative justice.
We will be actively involved in the NYS Prisoner Justice Network Legislative Awareness Day, on May 3. The NYS Parole Reform Campaign will do a briefing in the morning and lead members of PAN, the Coalition for Fair Criminal Justice Polices, and the NYS Parole Reform Campaign on visits to their legislators in the afternoon. All members are encouraged to attend. Please call us about transportation to Albany, if needed. Prior to May 3, we will participate in NYS Prisoner Justice Network’s Regional Meetings (see article directly below) around the state to drum up excitement about the event. Representatives of our Campaign will be present at each event.
A NYS Parole Campaign website is being developed with the support of The Thousand Kites Narrative Campaign. We have a logo for the site designed using feedback from Campaign supporters who took an on-line survey. On March 20 the first training class for flip videographers will take place and interviews with affected people around the state will begin. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED AND AVAILABLE, BY PHONE, AT 5:30 ON MARCH 20, PLEASE CALL 518 253 7533 OR EMAIL NOW.
We encourage the writers among you to send letters to the editors of your local papers, in support of the issues addressed by the SAFE Parole Act.
7. NEW YORK STATE PRISONER JUSTICE NETWORK HOLDS REGIONAL MEETINGS TO PREPARE FOR LEGISLATIVE AWARENESS DAY ON MAY 3.
Come and share your ideas and strategies for challenging and changing New York’s criminal INjustice system, and learn about the Legislative Awareness Day for Prisoner Justice to be held on May 3rd in Albany.
(1) New York City: Presentation at monthly meeting of Riverside Church Prison Ministry, took place on February 27th, at Riverside Church
(2) North Country Region: SUNY Plattsburgh, took place on March 10.
(3) Central New York Region: SUNY Binghamton, took place on March 12.
(4) Albany: Prison Families of New York, March 28, 7:00 p.m. 373 Central Avenue
(5) Buffalo/Western New York, March 28, 6:30-8:30, Pratt-Willert Community Center, 422 Pratt Street Buffalo 14204. Hosted by Prisoners Are People Too
(6) Albany: SUNY Albany Student Activist Conference Workshop, April 2nd
(7) NYC: Saturday April 2, 12pm Riverside Church Room 10T (490 Riverside Drive, New York, NY) enter on Claremont Ave between 120th and 121st Streets and go to the tenth floor
(7) Long Island: Prison Families Anonymous, April 12, 7:30 p.m. Community Presbyterian Church, 1843 Deer Park Avenue, Deer Park, Long Island
Mid-Hudson Regional Meeting - To be scheduled. [Please visit the website linked below for updates.]
Everyone is invited to these regional meetings. For more information: 518-434-4037, nysprisonerjustice@gmail.com, NYSPJN, 33 Central Ave, Albany NY 12210. Website: www.nysprisonerjustice.org
8. PAROLE NEWS, INCLUDING JANUARY STATS; AN ANALYSIS OF FOIL REQUEST INFORMATION, & QUOTES FROM AN ARTICLE IN NY LAW JOURNAL ABOUT THE MERGER'S EFFECT ON THE PAROLE BOARD'S POWER.
STATISTICS FROM PRISON:
Mid-Orange prisoners report that Loomis, Brown, and Ross were the commissioners in January.
JANUARY 2011 PAROLE BOARD RELEASES – A1 VIOLENT FELONS – DIN #s through 1999 unofficial research from parole database
TOTAL INTERVIEWS......... # RELEASED. ..# DENIED RATE OF RELEASE
17 initials............................... 1.................... 16.................. 6%
94 reappearances................... 22.................. 72.................. 23%
111 total................................ 23.................. 88....... 21%
JANUARY INITIAL RELEASES
FACILITY........... SENTENCE......... OFFENSE
Mid Orange... 22-Life......... Murder 2
JANUARY REAPPEARANCES
FACILITY.................. SENTENCE........ OFFENSE.......... # OF BOARD
Arthurkill................... 7 ?-Life............ Murder 2........ 10th
Arthurkill................... 15-Life............ Murder 2........ 5th
Attica......................... 25-Life............ Murder 2........ 4th
Bedford Hills........... 25-Life............ Murder 2........ 2nd
Cape Vincent.......... 2-Life.............. Murder 2........ 5th
Fishkill................ .... 25-Life............ Murder 2........ 6th
Gouverneur............. 20-Life............ Murd. pre-74... 11th
Groveland................ 20-Life............ Murder 2........ 4th
Mid Orange............. 15-Life............ Murder 2........ 2nd
Mid Orange............. 15-Life............ Murder 2........ 6th
Mid Orange............. 20-Life............ Murder 2........ 3rd
Mid Orange............. 15-Life............ Murder 2........ 8th
Mid Orange............. 17-Life............ Murder 2........ 6th
Mid Orange............. 20-Life............ Murder 2........ 2nd
Oneida..................... 15-Life............ Murder 2........ 6th
Oneida..................... 15-Life............ Murder 2........ 7th
Otisville................... 25-Life............ Murder 2........ 4th
Otisville................... 20-Life............ Murder 2........ 9th
Otisville.................... 25-Life............ Murder 2........ 2nd
Walsh Med.............. 25-Life............ Murder 2........ 4th
Walsh Med.............. 15-Life............ Murder 2........ 4th
Woodbourne........... 1 ?-Life............ Murder 2........ 5th
***********************************************************************
BUILDING BRIDGES SUBMITTED A FOIL REQUEST TO PAROLE AND RECEIVED 9 MONTHS WORTH OF COMMISSIONERS’ NAMES WHO WERE PRESENT FOR HEARINGS FROM 1/1/10-9/15/10 (APPROX. 180 HEARINGS). We wanted to learn if there was any substance to readers' protests that some commissioners never release people with A1 violent felony convictions at the completion of their minimum sentence, and that commissioners were not assigned randomly, as the Parole Board has claimed. We also were trying to see if there was any evidence to support claims that hearings are predetermined, as is the almost universal opinion of men and women who appear before the parole board. Bear in mind that parole boards are made up of either two or three commissioners, and the decisions are made in the name of the lead questioner at the hearing, so there is no way to know how specific individuals voted.
That said, here is what we saw as we looked at the record: Some commissioners were paired with each other more often than would be expected to randomly occur, specifically Ferguson and Elovich, Gallivan and Greenan, Hagler and Smith, Grant and Loomis. Some, particularly in Western NY, tend to be on boards in their home area more often than not, with Gallivan appearing on 5 out of the 7 hearings held at Gowanda during the Foil period, Greenan on 4 out of 7 at Wende/Collins and Crangle on 4 out of 7 at Albion.
Crangle, Hernandez, Lemons, Ludlow and Thompson were each twice on boards that released a person with an A1VO on his/her initial appearance, while Ferguson and Gallivan each were only once on a board that released an A1VO on his or her first board. We could find no initial releases of A1VOs under boards with Smith, Greenan, Hagler or Elovich during the Foil period (9 months).
All A1VO initial releases came out of mediums except for 3 which came from max’s. All three of those at max's were released by Grant, Loomis and Ross. We do not understand this. Surely the Board understands that being in a maximum facility does not mean that the person is any less deserving of release than someone in a medium. There are many reasons a person could be in a max; not all are punitive by any means. For example, a person can request to be transferred to one. Max's have cells as opposed to dormitories and some people prefer the privacy. They also have family reunification programs, and weekday visiting hours, which makes prisoners with families nearby prefer them.
No A1VO was released on an initial board from any of the facilities in the Elmira hub, not just in the 9 months of data Foiled but in the four years that Building Bridges has published these statistics. The Elmira hub consists of Elmira, Auburn, Five Points, Cayuga (med) and Southport. The second hub least likely to be released from on a first hearing is the Watertown hub - Gouverneur, Watertown, Cape Vincent, Ogdensburg and Riverview (all mediums) - which has seen the release of only two A1VOs on initial boards in the last four years, while Elmira has seen zero, according to our research.
That was perhaps the most disturbing fact of all - that some facilities have no/virtually no initial board releases of A1's. It gives support to the theory that decisions are predetermined and not based on individual merit. We will continue to search for the reasons. If readers can add anything to our research, please do so.
******************************************
Will DOCS and the Division of Parole merge under Cuomo?
In an article by Joel Stashenko published in the NY Law Journal, he claims Parole Boards would lose authority under Cuomo. He begins: "Parole boards would lose their authority to set restrictions on the lives of former prisoners under a provision of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo's proposed budget. Mr. Cuomo's proposal would give the commissioner of a newly created Department of Corrections and Community Supervision the power to set details of parole, such as requiring curfews and attendance in drug or alcohol programs, that are currently up to parole commissioners to decide. The bill also would give the commissioner of the new agency the authority to revoke parole and to shorten its terms. Those decisions now are the ultimate responsibility of the chair of the full Board of Parole, a position the governor wants to abolish.
To read the rest of the article please visit rethinkingreentry.blogspot.comwhere it is posted.
PLEASE NOTE: the above article was published after our deadline, so it will not appear in Building Bridges copies that are mailed this month to people without email access.
9. PRISON MEDIA: THREAD NEWS!
www.threadnews.org
A digital multimedia magazine produced by a collective of educators and journalists, Thread News! launched its inaugural issue March 1st. Each issue, consisting mostly of an original short-form documentary video, will feature one story, or Thread, for two weeks. Their first issue deals with the complexities of prison re-entry, as seen through the eyes of 35 year old recent parolee Manny Borras, a playwright, who must now navigate life on the outside. The site includes a public video comment board, where those with the equipment can upload their comments via video. It’s a very interesting website, and Manny’s story is an excellent choice for their inauguration.
The semiweekly digital magazine is available online and free of charge. Its aim is to educate viewers, inspire them to engage with their communities and become positive agents for change.
Four times per year, a symposium will be held to discuss the larger issues touched upon by individual Threads. Policy makers, experts, and sometimes the subjects of the stories, are invited to discuss solutions to the issues at hand. For more information about Thread News, or to schedule an interview, please contact Marcos Barbery, founder and editor, at (617) 680-5308 or mbarbery@threadnews.org.
10. THINK OUTSIDE THE CELL FOUNDATION'S NATIONAL SYMPOSIUM
The Rev. Al Sharpton, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, and CNN journalist Soledad O’Brien will be among the participants at the upcoming national symposium on issues affecting the incarcerated, the formerly incarcerated and their loved ones.
The profoundly moving anthologies in the Think Outside the Cell book series are providing the framework for the symposium, to be held on Sept. 24 at the Riverside Church in New York City. The event, a program of the Think Outside the Cell Foundation, has received generous funding from the Ford Foundation and is being presented in full partnership with the College and Community Fellowship and the Fortune Society’s David Rothenberg Center for Public Policy.
“We are grateful and delighted that the symposium is attracting such stellar leaders,” said Sheila Rule, publisher of the anthology series and founder of the Think Outside the Cell Foundation. She and her husband, Joe (Donkor) Robinson, created the concept for the symposium. “Mayor Booker has made prisoner reentry a priority of his administration, which sets him apart. Soledad’s groundbreaking documentaries on what it means to be Black and Latino in America touch directly on the issues that will be explored at the symposium. And, of course, Rev. Sharpton’s ceaseless efforts against racial and social injustice put him in a league of his own.”
The Sept. 24th event will bring together national experts and policy makers, as well as hundreds of those who live in the long shadow of prison, whose voices and concerns have rarely been raised on the national stage. Anyone with prison in their backgrounds is encouraged to attend. An audience of more than 800 is anticipated.
For more information about the series and the symposium, please contact Sheila Rule at thinkoutsidethecell@verizon.net, 877-267-2303 or the Think Outside the Cell Foundation, 511 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 525, New York, NY 10011. The website is www.thinkoutsidethecell.org.
Sheila Rule, in a recent article titled, "Prisons, Crime and Budgets: Time for a New Paradigm" published by Huffington Post, says in speaking of current policies, "...these policies have conspired with long-held negative attitudes to create the building blocks of modern-day inequality." and "...the long shadow of prison continues to so dramatically obscure the humanity of those who have spent time behind walls that the kind of support they need in order to realize their plans of reintegrating into society and building meaningful lives is tantamount to wishful thinking." [You can link to the article here.]
Building Bridges is published by Prison Action Network as our way of communicating with our members.
If you would like to join, please give us a call at 518 253 7533 or send an email.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
February 2011
Dear Reader,
This newsletter is our way of communicating with our members, who have it delivered to their email or street addresses. But we want as many people as possible to know about the hidden members of our society - those behind prison walls - so we post it here hoping to catch the interest of a few wanderers. Welcome to our world!
We - all of us - the entire Prison Action Network - need you to take action to help us. We need information, we need your state legislative representatives to support the SAFE Parole Act, and Charles Rangel to include criminal justice among the choices on his website (see article 1, Actions).
We need your participation at the NYSPJN Legislative Awareness Day on May 3 (see article 1, Events), especially those who were part of Family Empowerment Day 4, where the idea behind the SAFE Parole Act was born. Together we CAN make a difference, but that means we ALL need to do some challenging things. That's why "Action' is our middle name!
Please be well, keep the faith, share the news, and for the sake of all of us, get involved!
SUMMARIES OF ARTICLES
1. ACTIONS, EVENTS, AND MEETINGS ARE LISTED GEOGRAPHICALLY so you can easily check for those in your area. There's information regarding researching parole denials, writing to the governor in support of the SAFE Parole Act, using an outline provided to help you communicate with your legislators, asking Charles Rangel to add criminal justice to his agenda, and last but not least, reserving Sat.May 3rd to attend the NYS Prisoner Justice Legislative Advocacy Day.
2. THE CORRECTIONAL ASSOCIATION HAS APPOINTED J. SOFFIYAH ELIJAH as their new Executive Director. An accomplished advocate, scholar and educator, Ms. Elijah brings decades of experience addressing the urgent needs of the marginalized, silenced and indigent people in our criminal and juvenile justice systems.
3. FORMERLY INCARCERATED PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT - Activists directly affected by the prison industrial complex have begun organizing to develop a national civil rights movement. NY’s Tina Reynolds is part of the steering committee.
4. MICHELLE ALEXANDER AND ANGELA DAVIS discuss incarceration as a system of racial control at WBAI 99.5 FM Building Bridges: Your Community & Labor Report. The program will be posted on WBAI’s archives until June 7th.
5. MONEY OR MORALITY - Martin Luther King, Jr. could have argued that separate water fountains were too expensive, a waste of money. He would have been right about that. But cost was beside the point and it should be beside the point today. Michelle Alexander, in “Obama’s Drug War”, her article in the Dec 9 issue of The Nation.
6. NYS PAROLE REFORM CAMPAIGN REPORT includes a list of 51 organizations that have signed on; the Campaign’s easily understood list of reasons (called the Statement of Purpose and Intent) for specific changes in the SAFE Parole Act, and a call for help translating the Campaign’s literature into Spanish and designing a logo for the Campaign's under-construction website.
7. PAROLE NEWS - Gov's budget bill calls for reducing number of parole board members to 13, combining DOCS and the Div of Parole into one agency called the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, with the Parole Board remaining an administratively independent decision making body; December A1VO statistics.
8. THINK OUTSIDE THE CELL ANNOUNCES NATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON SAT. SEPT. 24. The event is a reflection of the Think Outside the Cell Foundation’s mission to overturn the dehumanizing stereotypes of men, women and children who live in the long shadow of prison, and to help members of this population embrace their personal power. Excerpts from the new 3-book series, and a call for submissions fo
[For copies of any document, article or legislation referred to, or condensed, in this issue, please send an email to PAN with a request clearly stating number of the article and the date it appeared -Ed.]
1. ACTIVISM: ACTIONS, EVENTS AND MEETINGS HAPPENING AROUND THE STATE THIS MONTH
ACTIONS
MAIL US YOUR PAROLE DENIAL INFORMATION: Have you or your loved one been denied parole solely because of the nature of the crime? How many times? Governor Cuomo's new budget contains a revision to Exec. Law 259-i that does nothing to prevent the parole board from basing parole release denials on the nature of the crime. Since he wants to save money, we want to point out to him that each unnecessary parole denial costs up to $70,000 per 2-year hit. The trouble is we don't know if there are any statistics showing how many denials are based solely on the nature of the crime. You can help by sending us the person's name (just so we don't count one person more than once) and the number of times s/he has been denied solely on the nature of the crime. Please try to send your response by Friday Feb 25. If you have a copy of the denial/s, please send them as well so that when we communicate with the governor we can back up our information. Please send to NYS Parole Reform Campaign, PO Box 6355, Albany NY 12206 or email parole.reform@gmail.com. Together we CAN make a difference!
WRITE A LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR in support of the SAFE Parole Act: www.NYcitizenscampaign.com is the website he created, with a form for comments on the budget crisis. I sent him the following note, which you may copy and sign if you agree with it. Please feel free to change it or write your own:
"You presented a revision of Exec. Law 259-i as a way to save money. Leaving the nature of the crime as the primary criteria for consideration by the Parole Board for denying parole wastes close to $70,000 per each denial. It is the present dangerousness of the person today which is the crucial consideration, not the act for which they were convicted and which can never change. They will be released someday. The nature of the crime will be the same then as it is now and was at the completion of their minimum sentence. If there is evidence that they are a community-ready person, then why waste money keeping them in prison at a total cost of close to $40,000 a year? We have a better suggestion. The Safe and Fair Evaluations (SAFE) Parole Act. I'll be sending it to you. Thank you."
You may also send your letter to him at Andrew M. Cuomo, Governor, NYS State Capitol Building, Albany, NY 12224
HERE'S AN OUTLINE THAT MIGHT HELP YOU find the words to introduce yourself to your State Assembly member and Senator [please call us if you need help finding out how to reach them: 518 253 7533].
Dear [Assembly member, Senator]:
“I’m writing/calling/visiting because I have a problem which requires legislative action, and you are my representative in the legislature.” My [mother, brother, son, husband, wife, sister, uncle, father, aunt, daughter] has been in prison for [x number of] years, serving a sentence of [x years] to [x years, Life]. They are/were eligible for parole on [month and year]
Describe the hardships this incarceration has caused you and/or your family. Describe how he/she has changed over the years. Talk about the good things he/she has done while in prison. Describe his/her plans for life back home. If your loved one has seen the board already, tell how many times, and describe the pain those denials cause you and the other members of your family. Tell about how when he/she appears before the parole board they don’t release him/her because of the nature of the crime (if that's the case). Describe how hopeless and helpless this makes you and the rest of the family feel. If your loved one has not yet seen the board, talk about the stories you’ve heard on visiting days from others about parole hearings, and how afraid you are that your loved one will be denied when it’s his/her turn.
“I am asking you to pass legislation that would require the parole board to base their decisions on who my loved one is today, not on what he/she once did and can never take back.”
REPRESENTATIVE CHARLIE RANGEL IS SEEKING OPINIONS on what is the most important issue Congress should address. Well, on his list Criminal Justice Reform is absent even though we have 1.4 million African American males locked in cages all across this country. Visit his website www.Rangel.house.gov ; click on "other" and ask him why this is not on his list and tell him why it should be. [Submitted by Joseph Jazz Hayden, Jazz]
EVENTS:
ALBANY events
MAY 3RD - - SAVE THE DATE!
NEW YORK STATE PRISONER JUSTICE NETWORK LEGISLATIVE AWARENESS DAY
Prisoner justice activists from around the state will talk with legislators and their staffs about issues including parole reform, the implementation of the SHU bill, prison closures, and others. Participants will network with each other, be briefed on the issues, and go in delegations to pre-arranged meetings with legislators.
Legislative Awareness Day will be a chance to show legislators and all New Yorkers that there is an alternative to the current culture of punishment and vengeance which keeps more than 57,000 people behind bars. It will demonstrate that there is a statewide constituency to change New York's harsh and unjust criminal justice policies. It will strengthen the statewide movement for prisoner justice by giving participants information about each others' issues and a chance to learn about and support each others' campaigns.
The day is free and everyone concerned about New York's prison system is invited to attend. For more information, call the Albany Social Justice Center at 518-434-4037, e-mail nysprisonerjustice@gmail.com, or write to NYSPJN, 33 Central Ave, Albany NY 12210.
Location: New York State AFL-CIO Bldg, 100 Swan Street in Albany.
LONG ISLAND event
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 5:30 PM (SNOW DATE MARCH 3RD) PRISON FAMILIES ANONYMOUS, INC.
"The Visitors- A Film"
Hosted by the Criminal Law Society of Touro Law Center.
This documentary film by Melis Birder depicts the emotional journey taken by a group of NY families as they travel to distant prisons in order to maintain ties to their incarcerated loved ones. Time will be allotted for a discussion after the movie, and members of Prison Families Anonymous will be available to answer questions. There is no admission fee. PFA is a 501(c) (3) organization and donations are appreciated.
Call Barbara: 631-943-0441 or Sue: 631-806-3903631-943-0441 for more information.
Location: Touro Law School (auditorium),
225 Eastview Drive, Central Islip, NY 11722
MANHATTAN events
SATURDAY, MARCH 19 SAVE THE DATE!
MICHELLE ALEXANDER SPEAKING ON THE NEW JIM CROW
Sponsored by Riverside Church Lecture Series and Campaign for Black Male Achievement; Open Society Foundations Details to be announced. To help with planning, please contact Jazz Hayden (917) 753-3771
NATIONAL events
SUNDAY, MARCH 13, 1:00 PM WALK TO WASHINGTON WITH THE IN YOUR FACE MOVEMENT
Rain, Sleet or Snow, 'The Your Face Movement' will be walking to Washington DC. This walk to Washington is predicated to be monumental, historical and unforgettable. The Walk to Washington is looking to make a huge impact on thousands of people as they journey through New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Washington D.C. When arriving in Washington D.C, In Your Face will be conducting an Awareness Rally, where speakers, activists, and organizations will gather.
The Walk for Justice will be walking from Harlem, New York to Washington D.C to spread awareness on a larger scale; causing people to look, think and then take action. It will send a message to the masses and our incarcerated loved ones alike that we haven't forgotten about the oppressed housed behind the prison walls and that we too are aware of the 'true' agenda of the Prison Industry.
For More Information on The In Your Face Movement and/or The Walk To Washington
Please contact the organizers or (646) 406-9650
To register
MEETINGS: [From now on, after the first announcement, we will list only the name and contact information for ongoing meetings that don’t have changing agendas.]
REGIONAL NEW YORK STATE PRISONER JUSTICE NETWORK MEETINGS
Thursday, March 10, 4 p.m. North Country Region: SUNY Plattsburgh
Saturday, March 12 Central New York Region, SUNY Binghamton
The New York State Prisoner Justice Network is holding a series of regional meetings to inform people in local communities about the statewide network, to share ideas and strategies for challenging and changing New York's criminal INjustice system, and to encourage people from around the state to attend the Legislative Awareness Day for Prisoner Justice on May 3rd in Albany.
Everyone is invited to these regional meetings. For more information: 518-434-4037, nysprisonerjustice@gmail.com, NYSPJN, 33 Central Ave, Albany NY 12210
NYSPJN, 33 Central Ave, Albany NY 12210.
ALBANY meetings
Every Monday 7-8:30 pm PRISON FAMILIES OF NY SUPPORT GROUP MEETINGS - Alison 518-453-6659, PFNY
Every Tuesday at 6pm P-MOTIONS (PROGRESSIVE MEN OPERATING TOWARDS INITIATING OPPORTUNITIES NOW) - Malik at 518 445-5487.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 7-8:30 P.M. PRISON FAMILIES OF NEW YORK
Informational discussion with Tom Grant, former NYS Parole Board Commissioner.
FREE. For more information, please email PFNY or call 518-453-6659.
Location: 373 Central Avenue, Albany, NY
BROOKLYN meeting
EVERY WEDNESDAY AT 5:30PM VOCAL PAROLEES ORGANIZING PROJECT 917 676-8041, email
BUFFALO meetings
EVERY WEDNESDAY FROM 5-6 PM ERIE COUNTY PRISONERS RIGHTS COALITION demonstration in front of the Erie County Holding Center, corner of Delaware and Church, in Buffalo. Stand for ending abuse.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 6:30-8:30PM PRISONERS ARE PEOPLE TOO! MONTHLY MEETING
We will revisit the challenges of reentry. The documentary film being screened is “Omar and Pete” and we will hear from several organizations that have been instrumental in helping formerly incarcerated people navigate “this new world.” Although this film was screened before, five years ago, our guest speakers have never presented at a PRP2 meeting: Pastor Clay from the Stepping Stones Outreach Facility; Mrs. Brenda McDuffie, President of the Buffalo Urban League; and Mr. Leroy Jones, House Manager at Supportive Living on Northrup.
PRP2 programs are sponsored by The Circle of Supporters for Reformed Offenders and Friends of BaBa Eng. For further information, contact Karima Amin: 716-834-8438; email.
Location: Pratt-Willert Community Center, 422 Pratt Street, Buffalo
LONG ISLAND meetings
TUESDAY FEB. 22 AND MARCH 8TH, 7:30PM PRISON FAMILIES ANONYMOUS (PFA) SUPPORT GROUP
For more information, please contact: Barbara: 631-943-0441 or Sue: 631-806-3903
MANHATTAN meetings
EVERY FRIDAY 6-9PM RIVERSIDE CHURCH BOOK STUDY GROUP - The New Jim Crow, Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Washington. For information on the study group contact Jazz Hayden email, 917-753-3771
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1-3:00PM NY REENTRY ROUNDTABLE
How Compstat-Based Zero Tolerance Policing Creates Reentry Barriers; NYPD’s Stop and Frisk Policies
Speakers:
Annette Warren Dickerson, Director of Education and Outreach, Center for Constitutional Rights
Prof. M. Chris Fabricant, Director of the Criminal Justice Clinic at Pace University School of Law and at John Jay Legal Services, Inc.
Loyda Colon from the Justice Committee
Please RSVP: Gabriel Torres Rivera, J.D., Director, Reentry Initiatives
grivera@cssny.org 212-614-5306 www.cssny.org
Location: The Community Service Society of New York (CSS)
105 East 22nd Street at the corner of Park Avenue South, Conference Room 4A
Take the 6 or N/R trains to 23rd Street
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 10 AM COALITION FOR WOMEN PRISONERS Strategic Planning Meeting
The Violence against Women Committee will introduce our new legislation, “The Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act” This will be a combination of the legislative meeting that was canceled in January and the Violence Against Women Committee Highlighted meeting, so we will still be welcoming guest speakers Tracie Gardner, Maggie Williams and Roberta Meyers-Peeples, and last but not least, we will be wishing a farewell to Serena at this meeting also.
Stacey Thompson (212) 254-5700 x333
Coalition Associate, Women in Prison Project, Correctional Association of New York
All meetings are held at the CA of NY
2090 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd, 124-125, Suite 200
2/3/A/C/B/D to 125th st.
NIAGARA FALLS meeting
EVERY THIRD TUESDAY, 6-7:30PM NIAGARA PRISON FAMILY SUPPORT GROUP
Claudia 236-0257 or email
2. THE CORRECTIONAL ASSOCIATION HAS APPOINTED J. SOFFIYAH ELIJAH TO BE THEIR NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR.
Ms. Elijah will serve as the Association’s first African-American executive director. ...Ms. Elijah comes to the Correctional Association from the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School, where she has been a clinical instructor for the past 11 years and the deputy director for the past eight years. ...A native New Yorker, Ms. Elijah practiced criminal and family law in New York City for more than 20 years. She was a member of the faculty and Director and supervising attorney of the Defender Clinic at the City University of New York School of Law and a supervising attorney at the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, and worked as a staff attorney for the Juvenile Rights Division of the Legal Aid Society.
Ms. Elijah will join the staff of the Correctional Association on March 14, 2011. She will succeed Robert Gangi, who has served as Executive Director since 1983. During Mr. Gangi’s 29-year tenure, the Correctional Association has grown into a powerful and effective multi-million dollar advocacy organization.
3. FORMERLY INCARCERATED PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT
From February 28th -- March 2nd, Alabama will play host to formerly incarcerated activists from across the country as they convene in an effort to organize what may well be our nation's next major civil rights movement.
The conference, which is being organized by a steering committee comprised of prisoner rights and criminal justice reform activist leaders, [including NYC's Tina Reynolds, cofounder of WORTH] will draft a campaign platform calling for the restoration of civil rights, a halt to prison expansion, the elimination of excessive punishments, and the protection of the rights and dignity of family members of the incarcerated. Conference events, which are slated to occur in Montgomery, Dothan, and Selma, will include a backwards march over Edmund Pettis Bridge.
Who better to lead this movement than those who have first-hand experience of the dehumanizing, unjust nature of our prison system? They know all too well the inequities that exist within the system, the abuses that occur behind prison walls, the suffering that families of prisoners must endure, and the struggle that those returning from prison face in the search for housing, jobs, and a sense of belonging.
In this incarceration nation, where more than 2.3 million people wake up each morning behind bars, and another 10 million are on some form of court supervision, few of us remain untouched by the demolition caused by the system's wrath, but none are more equipped to spearhead the fight for reform than those whose lives have been most directly affected.
The recent prisoner strike in Georgia has been integral in building the critical mass necessary for a successful campaign. Thousands of people have demonstrated solidarity with Georgia's prisoners - and their demands for decent living conditions, fair wages for work, access to families, vocational and self-improvement programs, educational opportunities, access to health care, and an end to cruel and unusual punishment - through signing online letters of support. The convention in Alabama is yet another step towards the formation of a strong, determined leadership core for the movement - one that will demand the attention of decision makers and inspire others to act.
A number of grassroots prisoner rights, criminal justice reform, and service organizations are rallying in support of this movement. Among them are All of Us or None, World Conference of Mayors, Drug Policy Alliance, Equal Justice Initiative, Prodigal Child Project, National Justice Coalition, A New Way of Life, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, Women on the Rise Telling HerStory (WORTH), Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE), MN Second Chance Coalition, and The Ordinary People Society.
The convention in Alabama will be followed by another gathering in Los Angeles, slated for November 11, 2011.
4. MICHELLE ALEXANDER AND ANGELA DAVIS DISCUSS INCARCERATION AS A SYSTEM OF RACIAL CONTROL
WBAI 99.5 FM: Building Bridges: Your Community & Labor Report, Produced & Hosted by Mimi Rosenberg and Ken Nash A Building Bridges Special
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
with Michelle Alexander, civil rights advocate and litigator, author
and Angela Davis, Professor, University of California, Santa Cruz;a leading advocate in the movement to end the prison-industrial complex.
The program aired on February 7 but you can listen to it until June 7 on their archives.
5. MONEY OR MORALITY: MICHELLE ALEXANDER DEBATES WHETHER THE DRUG WARS ARE AN ECONOMIC ISSUE OR A MORAL ONE.
Obama's Drug War by Michelle Alexander | December 9, 2010, The Nation (http://www.thenation.com)
[Condensed from the published article]
For the first time in decades, politicians across the political spectrum, including some who were once "get tough" true believers, are wondering aloud whether the drug war has become too expensive.
Could this be the beginning of the end of the drug war, a war that has reportedly cost more than $1 trillion in the past few decades, with little to show for it beyond millions who have been branded criminals and felons, ushered behind bars and then released into a permanent second-class status? More than 30 million people have been arrested since 1982, when President Reagan turned Nixon's rhetorical "war against drugs" into a literal war against poor people of color. ... In some states, 80 to 90 percent of all drug offenders admitted to prison have been African-American, and when released they find themselves ushered into a parallel universe where they are stripped of many of the rights supposedly won during the civil rights movement. ... Could the economic crisis finally put an end to this madness? Is the drug war machinery that produced a vast new racial undercaste finally winding down?
Given the belt-tightening mood in Congress and the reluctance of the administration to show leadership on issues of race, the thinking goes, now is not the time to link drug law reform to a broader movement for racial justice. Ending our nation's racial divisions and anxieties is pie in the sky, a utopian dream. Better to stick with cost-benefit analyses of drug treatment versus incarceration, and show the public that it's cheaper to send a kid to college than to prison. The problem with that strategy is that it won't work, even during a time of economic crisis.
Why the pessimism? Two reasons. The first, and most obvious, is that the current economic crisis cuts both ways. The same fiscal concerns that have inspired a growing number of states to reconsider harsh and expensive mandatory minimum sentences have also inspired the Obama administration to increase funding for failed law enforcement initiatives, like the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) and the Byrne grant program—two programs the Bush Administration had begun to phase out.
... a peer-reviewed study in the journal Criminology found that the COPS program, despite the hype and the cost—more than $8 billion—"had little or no effect on crime." ... These programs have successfully ushered millions of poor folks of color into a permanent undercaste—largely for engaging in the same types of minor drug crimes that go ignored in middle-class white communities and on college campuses.
....The channeling of stimulus dollars to law enforcement may help some keep their jobs, but as New York Times columnist Charles Blow recently observed, it's a "callous political calculus.... The fact that they are ruining the lives of hundreds of thousands of black and Hispanic men and, by extension, the communities they belong to barely seems to register."
This brings us to the second, and more important, reason fiscal concerns won't end mass incarceration: the race card will be played by those who seek to preserve the system. In the absence of a major social movement that proactively deals with race in a constructive way, old racial divisions will trump new concerns about cost.
If you doubt that's the case, consider what is at stake. If we were to return to the rates of incarceration our nation had in the 1970s—a time, by the way, when many civil rights advocates thought incarceration rates were egregiously high—we would need to release four out of five people currently behind bars. More than a million people employed by the criminal justice system could lose their jobs. Most new prison construction has occurred in predominantly white, rural communities already teetering on the edge of economic collapse. Those prisons across America would have to close. Private prison companies and all the corporate interests that profit from caging human beings would be forced to watch their earnings vanish.
... Few people would openly argue that we should lock up millions of poor people just so other people can have jobs or get a good return on their private investments. Instead, familiar arguments would likely resurface about the need to be "tough" on "them"—a group of people defined in the media and political discourse not so subtly as black and brown.
Although colorblind cost-benefit approaches often seem pragmatic in the short run, in the long run they are counterproductive. They leave intact the racial attitudes, stereotypes and anxieties that gave rise to the system in the first place. The problem lies in the nature of the system itself, not the cost. And the only way to dismantle the system is by building a broad coalition of Americans unwilling to accept it at any price.
Martin Luther King Jr. could have argued that separate water fountains were too expensive, a waste of money. He would have been right about that. But cost was beside the point. It should be beside the point today.
6. NYS PAROLE REFORM CAMPAIGN
The NYS Parole Reform Campaign has two subcommittees, the Strategy Team and the Policy Committee.
The Strategy Team is planning ways to move the SAFE Parole Act forward.
The Strategy Team has received signatures from the following 51 organizations attesting to their support for the SAFE Parole Act: Albany Political Prisoners Support Committee, All Things Harlem, Binghamton Justice Projects, The Bronx Defenders, Brooklyn Defender Services, Buffalo Local Action Committee (BLAC), Center for Community Alternatives, Center for Law and Justice, Citizens Against Recidivism, Inc., Coalition for Parole Restoration (CPR), College and Community Fellowship, Community Service Society of New York, The Correctional Association of New York, The Drug Policy Alliance, Erie County Prisoners Rights Coalition, Exponents, Families Rally for Emancipation and Empowerment (FREE!), The Fortune Society, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC), In Your Face Movement, Inside Out Art, Inc., Interfaith Coalition of Advocates for Reentry and Employment (ICARE), Legal Action Center, Narcofreedom Inc., Nassau Inmate Advocacy Group, Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, NYC Jericho Movement, New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NYSACDL), New York State Defenders Association, New York State Defenders Justice Fund, The Osborne Association, Prison Action Network, Prison Families Anonymous, Prison Policy Initiative, Prisoners Are People Too!, Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York, RIFT SUCCESS, RIFT SUCCESS 2nd Chance Division, Riverside Church Prison Ministry, Second Chance Committee, The Sentencing Project, Social Justice Center of Albany, Social Responsibility Council of the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany, SOhopeful of New York, Southern Tier Advocacy & Mitigation Project, Incorporated, TASC of the Capital District, The Think Outside the Cell Foundation, Inc., VOCAL New York, Western NY Peace Center, WORTH Women on the Rise Telling HerStory, Youth Represent.
What a great feeling it is to have so much support! We're not alone!!!!
The Campaign will be taking part in the NYSPJN Legislative Advocacy day planned for May 3. Parole reform will be one of the issues so we are hoping to get a large turnout from all the Campaign's membership organizations. Members of PAN will give a briefing on the SAFE Parole Act, followed by visits to your representatives.
On another note, we are looking for volunteers to translate our Campaign literature into Spanish, and to design our website's logo. If you are willing and able to donate your time to either of these important tasks, please email parole.reform@gmail.com or write the NYS Parole Reform Campaign at PO Box 6355, Albany NY 12206. Thank you!
PURPOSE AND INTENT STATEMENT FOR THE SAFE AND FAIR EVALUATIONS (SAFE) PAROLE ACT
DELETION OF SUBDIVISION 1: This section of the statute is outdated and no longer relevant. In 1980, the legislature placed the full responsibility for setting the minimum period of imprisonment on the courts, determining that the courts were better suited than the Parole Board to perform this function. Since the change in 1980, the courts have set the minimum for all indeterminate sentences.
THE INTERVIEW SHALL TAKE PLACE WITH ALL PARTIES PRESENT IN THE SAME ROOM: In-person interviews result in a more engaged, effective and meaningful process for parole applicants and parole commissioners. By increasing the opportunity for fairness, concern and serious consideration, such hearings increase the applicants’ trust in the process and in the goal of reintegration. At the same time, by their very nature, in-person hearings create an environment in which the parole board can more fully and fairly evaluate applicants.
THE INTERVIEW SHALL BE RECORDED AUDIO/VISUALLY: Videotaping interviews ensures that the final record is accurate and comprehensive, and eliminates the mistakes and omissions commonly found in transcripts. Recording the interviews in this way allows for a more effective review of the hearing, the atmosphere in which it takes place and the demeanor of all parties—and holds everyone accountable for their conduct. The cost of videotaping hearings and providing copies, when requested, to parole applicants is more than offset by the savings realized by eliminating the cost of stenographers and, in many cases, the cost of transcripts.
NO DOCUMENTS THAT ARE AVAILABLE TO THE PAROLE BOARD SHALL BE CONSIDERED CONFIDENTIAL EXCEPT WHEN FOR THE SAFETY OF THE PAROLE APPLICANT: Providing for full disclosure to the applicant of those documents that are already available to the Parole Board for consideration results in greater transparency, fairness and trust in the parole process. With full and fair disclosure, the applicant can address errors or other information, thereby ensuring a more accurate portrayal of him/her on which to base the board’s decision.
WITH THE PAROLE APPLICANT’S CONSENT, A COPY OF HIS/HER PSYCHIATRIC EVALUATION AND “PAROLE RELEASE PLAN” SHALL BE MADE AVAILABLE TO A REQUESTING VICTIM, OR VICTIM’S REPRESENTATIVE. THE PAROLE BOARD SHALL CONSIDER SUPPORTIVE OR CRITICAL INPUT FROM THE VICTIM CONCERNING BEHAVIOR OF THE PAROLE APPLICANT POST-SENTENCING: This change provides more information than ever before to victims and their representatives, who have typically been uninformed about the parole applicant’s progress while incarcerated, and alienated from the parole process. With this kind of information, victims have a more complete picture of the parole applicant’s behavior since sentencing and his/her readiness for release, and they can provide input in the parole process in a more meaningful way.
RELEASE ON PAROLE SHALL BE GRANTED FOR GOOD CONDUCT AND EFFICIENT PERFORMANCE OF DUTIES WHILE CONFINED, AND PREPAREDNESS FOR REENTRY AND REINTEGRATION INTO SOCIETY, THEREBY PROVIDING A REASONABLE BASIS TO CONCLUDE THAT, IF SUCH PERSON IS RELEASED, HE OR SHE WILL LIVE AND REMAIN AT LIBERTY WITHOUT VIOLATING THE LAW: With this change, the parole board is given more specific, workable criteria by which to determine parole releases. It requires the board to more thoroughly evaluate whatever changes have taken place in the parole applicant since sentencing, based on his/her institutional record, behavior and other reliable indicators while confined.
THE PAROLE BOARD WILL BE REQUIRED TO STATE IN DETAIL THE SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS FOR ACTIONS TO BE TAKEN, PROGRAMS OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS TO BE COMPLETED, OR CHANGES IN PERFORMANCE, OR CONDUCT TO BE MADE, OR CORRECTIVE ACTION OR ACTIONS TO BE TAKEN, IN ORDER TO QUALIFY FOR PAROLE RELEASE: Requiring the Parole Board to explicitly set forth detailed conditions for release is consistent with the proposed New York State Transitional Accountability Plan (TAP), which was a collaboration between the Department of Correctional Services and the Division of Parole. This change makes for good corrections, providing a fairer, more thoughtful and transparent process by which the Parole Board can make determinations regarding current and future release. It also alleviates the frustration and confusion experienced by parole applicants when they are not given clear and complete instructions regarding what they must do in order to meet the expectations of the next Parole Board. In the end, this change holds everyone accountable—the applicant, the Department of Correctional Services and the Parole Board.
THE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONAL SERVICES SHALL PROVIDE TO THE PAROLE APPLICANT ACCESS—WITHIN 90 DAYS—TO THE PROGRAM OR PROGRAMS, ACTIVITIES AND/OR FACILITIES NEEDED IN ORDER TO PROVIDE THE OPPORTUNITY TO FULFILL THE REQUIREMENTS SET FORTH BY THE PAROLE BOARD: Having created goals and expectations for the parole applicant, good and consistent corrections practices require that the applicant be given the opportunity to meet these goals. Such opportunities must be made available quickly, in order to take advantage of the applicant’s heightened motivation and willingness to participate. Doing so is also in keeping with the proposed TAP, and it promotes collaboration between Parole and Corrections.
THE PAROLE APPLICANT SHALL BE SCHEDULED FOR A REAPPEARANCE BEFORE THE BOARD UPON COMPLETION OF THE STIPULATED REQUIREMENTS, OR AFTER 24 MONTHS, WHICHEVER COMES FIRST. IF THE REQUIREMENTS PREVIOUSLY SET FORTH BY THE PAROLE BOARD HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED, RELEASE SHALL BE GRANTED: This change requires the initial Parole Board to be more thoughtful, thorough and specific regarding the evaluation of and expectations for the parole applicant. For example, at an applicant’s first parole hearing, the Parole Board must make a thorough, detailed assessment of the applicant’s strengths and deficits. Should the applicant be denied parole at that first hearing, the Parole Board must provide specific, detailed criteria that the applicant must fulfill in order to address the deficits. Once all criteria are fulfilled, and if the applicant’s record remains satisfactory, the applicant must be released.
7. PAROLE NEWS
The Governor's Budget Bill calls for reducing the number of Parole Commissioners to 13, which is the current number who were listed in last month's Building Bridges. Chairwoman Evans stated that with video conferencing being expanded beyond the current 26 facilities, it will be a manageable task.
The bill also combines DOCS and the Division of Parole into one agency called the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, with the Parole Board remaining an administratively independent decision-making body.
DECEMBER 2010 PAROLE BOARD RELEASES – A1 VIOLENT FELONS – DIN #s through 1999 unofficial research from parole database
Total Interviews...... # Released.... # Denied....... Rate of Release
19 Initials.............................. 3.................... 16.................. 16%
63 reappearances................... 12.................. 51.................. 19%
82 Total................................. 15.................. 67.................. 18%
Initial Releases
Facility......... Sentence..... Offense
Clinton.......... 25-Life........... Murder 2
Fishkill.......... 20-Life........... Murder 2
Mid Orange... 25-Life........... Murder 2
Reappearances
Facility......... Sentence...... Offense.......... # of Board
Attica............ 7-Life............. M2 (JO)........ 6th
Clinton.......... 1 ?-Life.......... Murder 2....... 6th
Eastern.......... 25-Life........... Murder 2....... 6th
Fishkill.......... 15-Life........... Murder 2....... 8th
Fishkill.......... 20-Life........... Murder 2....... 3rd
Fishkill.......... 15-Life........... Murder 2....... 6th
Mid Orange... 18 ?-Life........ Murder 2....... 6th
Mid Orange... 20-Life........... Murder 2....... 5th
Mid Orange... 15-Life........... Murder 2....... 3rd *for deportation only
Woodbourne.. 17-Life........... Murder 2....... 6th
Wyoming....... 15-Life........... Murder 2....... 7th
Wyoming....... 2 ?-5.............. M2 (JO?)......... 6th
8. THINK OUTSIDE THE CELL FOUNDATION NATIONAL SYMPOSIUM AND CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
On Sept 24, 2011, at the historic Riverside Church in New York City, this event will provide an opportunity for those with prison in their backgrounds to raise their voices and be heard on issues affecting the incarcerated, the formerly incarcerated and their loved ones,
The deeply moving anthologies in the Think Outside the Cell series, which Building Bridges featured in its last newsletter, will provide the framework for the symposium, a program of the Think Outside the Cell Foundation that is being presented with generous funding from the Ford Foundation and in full partnership with the College and Community Fellowship and the Fortune Society’s David Rothenberg Center for Public Policy. The event is a reflection of the Think Outside the Cell Foundation’s mission to overturn the dehumanizing stereotypes of men, women and children who live in the long shadow of prison, and to help members of this population embrace their personal power. The books that the Foundation publishes also reflect that mission.
For more information: email, or call 877-267-2303
Following are excerpts from the three anthologies in the Think Outside the Cell Series:
The Hard Journey Home: Real-Life Stories About Reentering Society After Incarceration
“I was seventy-three years old and alone… In those early months after coming home, I had only two depend-able companions. One was loneliness. It sets in quietly in prison, and you accept it. But on the streets, it’s palpable. The other companion was fear. I was scared to death of life on the outside.” -Larry White, “From Reentry to Reintegration”
Counting the Years: Real-Life Stories About Waiting for Loved Ones to Return Home from Prison
“My mother is scheduled to come home later this year. I started out waiting for her like a bird on a perch—still, watchful, uneasy. I was afraid to use my voice to sing. I was afraid to fly, as if I had committed the crime myself, as if my own wings were clipped, as if I were chained and bound by her actions.” -Jennifer Collins, “The Long Road Home”
Love Lives Here, Too: Real-Life Stories About Prison Marriages and Relationships
“I could rationalize why she felt the need to escape from a relationship with a man in prison. It probably seemed to her that I was on another planet… Maybe when she went back to the real world, she needed to still have someone there. On the other hand, if she truly loved me, wouldn’t she be here for me, no matter what the circumstances?” - Patrick Stephens, “The Ugly Butterfly”
To order books, please contact the publisher
The Foundation is now accepting submissions from people who are currently incarcerated for a book that will feature practical ways that incarcerated persons can “give back” to their communities. To contribute, simply write a two-page piece, including: 1) The name of the specific activity or volunteer service you would use in order to give back (for example, a prison-based book drive), 2) One or two paragraphs about why the activity is important, how it can help the community and what community/societal problem your activity addresses, 3) In simplest terms, a brief step-by-step guide on how incarcerated persons, either individually or as a group, can carry out the activity/volunteer service.
Submissions for this project are due by April 15, 2011, and should be sent to: The Think Outside the Cell Foundation, 511 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 525, NY, NY 10011
If you would like to join Prison Action Network please send a note and a donation to PAN, PO Box 6355, Albany NY 12206. You may also call us at 518 253 7533.
This newsletter is our way of communicating with our members, who have it delivered to their email or street addresses. But we want as many people as possible to know about the hidden members of our society - those behind prison walls - so we post it here hoping to catch the interest of a few wanderers. Welcome to our world!
We - all of us - the entire Prison Action Network - need you to take action to help us. We need information, we need your state legislative representatives to support the SAFE Parole Act, and Charles Rangel to include criminal justice among the choices on his website (see article 1, Actions).
We need your participation at the NYSPJN Legislative Awareness Day on May 3 (see article 1, Events), especially those who were part of Family Empowerment Day 4, where the idea behind the SAFE Parole Act was born. Together we CAN make a difference, but that means we ALL need to do some challenging things. That's why "Action' is our middle name!
Please be well, keep the faith, share the news, and for the sake of all of us, get involved!
SUMMARIES OF ARTICLES
1. ACTIONS, EVENTS, AND MEETINGS ARE LISTED GEOGRAPHICALLY so you can easily check for those in your area. There's information regarding researching parole denials, writing to the governor in support of the SAFE Parole Act, using an outline provided to help you communicate with your legislators, asking Charles Rangel to add criminal justice to his agenda, and last but not least, reserving Sat.May 3rd to attend the NYS Prisoner Justice Legislative Advocacy Day.
2. THE CORRECTIONAL ASSOCIATION HAS APPOINTED J. SOFFIYAH ELIJAH as their new Executive Director. An accomplished advocate, scholar and educator, Ms. Elijah brings decades of experience addressing the urgent needs of the marginalized, silenced and indigent people in our criminal and juvenile justice systems.
3. FORMERLY INCARCERATED PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT - Activists directly affected by the prison industrial complex have begun organizing to develop a national civil rights movement. NY’s Tina Reynolds is part of the steering committee.
4. MICHELLE ALEXANDER AND ANGELA DAVIS discuss incarceration as a system of racial control at WBAI 99.5 FM Building Bridges: Your Community & Labor Report. The program will be posted on WBAI’s archives until June 7th.
5. MONEY OR MORALITY - Martin Luther King, Jr. could have argued that separate water fountains were too expensive, a waste of money. He would have been right about that. But cost was beside the point and it should be beside the point today. Michelle Alexander, in “Obama’s Drug War”, her article in the Dec 9 issue of The Nation.
6. NYS PAROLE REFORM CAMPAIGN REPORT includes a list of 51 organizations that have signed on; the Campaign’s easily understood list of reasons (called the Statement of Purpose and Intent) for specific changes in the SAFE Parole Act, and a call for help translating the Campaign’s literature into Spanish and designing a logo for the Campaign's under-construction website.
7. PAROLE NEWS - Gov's budget bill calls for reducing number of parole board members to 13, combining DOCS and the Div of Parole into one agency called the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, with the Parole Board remaining an administratively independent decision making body; December A1VO statistics.
8. THINK OUTSIDE THE CELL ANNOUNCES NATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON SAT. SEPT. 24. The event is a reflection of the Think Outside the Cell Foundation’s mission to overturn the dehumanizing stereotypes of men, women and children who live in the long shadow of prison, and to help members of this population embrace their personal power. Excerpts from the new 3-book series, and a call for submissions fo
[For copies of any document, article or legislation referred to, or condensed, in this issue, please send an email to PAN with a request clearly stating number of the article and the date it appeared -Ed.]
1. ACTIVISM: ACTIONS, EVENTS AND MEETINGS HAPPENING AROUND THE STATE THIS MONTH
ACTIONS
MAIL US YOUR PAROLE DENIAL INFORMATION: Have you or your loved one been denied parole solely because of the nature of the crime? How many times? Governor Cuomo's new budget contains a revision to Exec. Law 259-i that does nothing to prevent the parole board from basing parole release denials on the nature of the crime. Since he wants to save money, we want to point out to him that each unnecessary parole denial costs up to $70,000 per 2-year hit. The trouble is we don't know if there are any statistics showing how many denials are based solely on the nature of the crime. You can help by sending us the person's name (just so we don't count one person more than once) and the number of times s/he has been denied solely on the nature of the crime. Please try to send your response by Friday Feb 25. If you have a copy of the denial/s, please send them as well so that when we communicate with the governor we can back up our information. Please send to NYS Parole Reform Campaign, PO Box 6355, Albany NY 12206 or email parole.reform@gmail.com. Together we CAN make a difference!
WRITE A LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR in support of the SAFE Parole Act: www.NYcitizenscampaign.com is the website he created, with a form for comments on the budget crisis. I sent him the following note, which you may copy and sign if you agree with it. Please feel free to change it or write your own:
"You presented a revision of Exec. Law 259-i as a way to save money. Leaving the nature of the crime as the primary criteria for consideration by the Parole Board for denying parole wastes close to $70,000 per each denial. It is the present dangerousness of the person today which is the crucial consideration, not the act for which they were convicted and which can never change. They will be released someday. The nature of the crime will be the same then as it is now and was at the completion of their minimum sentence. If there is evidence that they are a community-ready person, then why waste money keeping them in prison at a total cost of close to $40,000 a year? We have a better suggestion. The Safe and Fair Evaluations (SAFE) Parole Act. I'll be sending it to you. Thank you."
You may also send your letter to him at Andrew M. Cuomo, Governor, NYS State Capitol Building, Albany, NY 12224
HERE'S AN OUTLINE THAT MIGHT HELP YOU find the words to introduce yourself to your State Assembly member and Senator [please call us if you need help finding out how to reach them: 518 253 7533].
Dear [Assembly member, Senator]:
“I’m writing/calling/visiting because I have a problem which requires legislative action, and you are my representative in the legislature.” My [mother, brother, son, husband, wife, sister, uncle, father, aunt, daughter] has been in prison for [x number of] years, serving a sentence of [x years] to [x years, Life]. They are/were eligible for parole on [month and year]
Describe the hardships this incarceration has caused you and/or your family. Describe how he/she has changed over the years. Talk about the good things he/she has done while in prison. Describe his/her plans for life back home. If your loved one has seen the board already, tell how many times, and describe the pain those denials cause you and the other members of your family. Tell about how when he/she appears before the parole board they don’t release him/her because of the nature of the crime (if that's the case). Describe how hopeless and helpless this makes you and the rest of the family feel. If your loved one has not yet seen the board, talk about the stories you’ve heard on visiting days from others about parole hearings, and how afraid you are that your loved one will be denied when it’s his/her turn.
“I am asking you to pass legislation that would require the parole board to base their decisions on who my loved one is today, not on what he/she once did and can never take back.”
REPRESENTATIVE CHARLIE RANGEL IS SEEKING OPINIONS on what is the most important issue Congress should address. Well, on his list Criminal Justice Reform is absent even though we have 1.4 million African American males locked in cages all across this country. Visit his website www.Rangel.house.gov ; click on "other" and ask him why this is not on his list and tell him why it should be. [Submitted by Joseph Jazz Hayden, Jazz]
EVENTS:
ALBANY events
MAY 3RD - - SAVE THE DATE!
NEW YORK STATE PRISONER JUSTICE NETWORK LEGISLATIVE AWARENESS DAY
Prisoner justice activists from around the state will talk with legislators and their staffs about issues including parole reform, the implementation of the SHU bill, prison closures, and others. Participants will network with each other, be briefed on the issues, and go in delegations to pre-arranged meetings with legislators.
Legislative Awareness Day will be a chance to show legislators and all New Yorkers that there is an alternative to the current culture of punishment and vengeance which keeps more than 57,000 people behind bars. It will demonstrate that there is a statewide constituency to change New York's harsh and unjust criminal justice policies. It will strengthen the statewide movement for prisoner justice by giving participants information about each others' issues and a chance to learn about and support each others' campaigns.
The day is free and everyone concerned about New York's prison system is invited to attend. For more information, call the Albany Social Justice Center at 518-434-4037, e-mail nysprisonerjustice@gmail.com, or write to NYSPJN, 33 Central Ave, Albany NY 12210.
Location: New York State AFL-CIO Bldg, 100 Swan Street in Albany.
LONG ISLAND event
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 5:30 PM (SNOW DATE MARCH 3RD) PRISON FAMILIES ANONYMOUS, INC.
"The Visitors- A Film"
Hosted by the Criminal Law Society of Touro Law Center.
This documentary film by Melis Birder depicts the emotional journey taken by a group of NY families as they travel to distant prisons in order to maintain ties to their incarcerated loved ones. Time will be allotted for a discussion after the movie, and members of Prison Families Anonymous will be available to answer questions. There is no admission fee. PFA is a 501(c) (3) organization and donations are appreciated.
Call Barbara: 631-943-0441 or Sue: 631-806-3903631-943-0441 for more information.
Location: Touro Law School (auditorium),
225 Eastview Drive, Central Islip, NY 11722
MANHATTAN events
SATURDAY, MARCH 19 SAVE THE DATE!
MICHELLE ALEXANDER SPEAKING ON THE NEW JIM CROW
Sponsored by Riverside Church Lecture Series and Campaign for Black Male Achievement; Open Society Foundations Details to be announced. To help with planning, please contact Jazz Hayden (917) 753-3771
NATIONAL events
SUNDAY, MARCH 13, 1:00 PM WALK TO WASHINGTON WITH THE IN YOUR FACE MOVEMENT
Rain, Sleet or Snow, 'The Your Face Movement' will be walking to Washington DC. This walk to Washington is predicated to be monumental, historical and unforgettable. The Walk to Washington is looking to make a huge impact on thousands of people as they journey through New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Washington D.C. When arriving in Washington D.C, In Your Face will be conducting an Awareness Rally, where speakers, activists, and organizations will gather.
The Walk for Justice will be walking from Harlem, New York to Washington D.C to spread awareness on a larger scale; causing people to look, think and then take action. It will send a message to the masses and our incarcerated loved ones alike that we haven't forgotten about the oppressed housed behind the prison walls and that we too are aware of the 'true' agenda of the Prison Industry.
For More Information on The In Your Face Movement and/or The Walk To Washington
Please contact the organizers or (646) 406-9650
To register
MEETINGS: [From now on, after the first announcement, we will list only the name and contact information for ongoing meetings that don’t have changing agendas.]
REGIONAL NEW YORK STATE PRISONER JUSTICE NETWORK MEETINGS
Thursday, March 10, 4 p.m. North Country Region: SUNY Plattsburgh
Saturday, March 12 Central New York Region, SUNY Binghamton
The New York State Prisoner Justice Network is holding a series of regional meetings to inform people in local communities about the statewide network, to share ideas and strategies for challenging and changing New York's criminal INjustice system, and to encourage people from around the state to attend the Legislative Awareness Day for Prisoner Justice on May 3rd in Albany.
Everyone is invited to these regional meetings. For more information: 518-434-4037, nysprisonerjustice@gmail.com, NYSPJN, 33 Central Ave, Albany NY 12210
NYSPJN, 33 Central Ave, Albany NY 12210.
ALBANY meetings
Every Monday 7-8:30 pm PRISON FAMILIES OF NY SUPPORT GROUP MEETINGS - Alison 518-453-6659, PFNY
Every Tuesday at 6pm P-MOTIONS (PROGRESSIVE MEN OPERATING TOWARDS INITIATING OPPORTUNITIES NOW) - Malik at 518 445-5487.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 7-8:30 P.M. PRISON FAMILIES OF NEW YORK
Informational discussion with Tom Grant, former NYS Parole Board Commissioner.
FREE. For more information, please email PFNY or call 518-453-6659.
Location: 373 Central Avenue, Albany, NY
BROOKLYN meeting
EVERY WEDNESDAY AT 5:30PM VOCAL PAROLEES ORGANIZING PROJECT 917 676-8041, email
BUFFALO meetings
EVERY WEDNESDAY FROM 5-6 PM ERIE COUNTY PRISONERS RIGHTS COALITION demonstration in front of the Erie County Holding Center, corner of Delaware and Church, in Buffalo. Stand for ending abuse.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 6:30-8:30PM PRISONERS ARE PEOPLE TOO! MONTHLY MEETING
We will revisit the challenges of reentry. The documentary film being screened is “Omar and Pete” and we will hear from several organizations that have been instrumental in helping formerly incarcerated people navigate “this new world.” Although this film was screened before, five years ago, our guest speakers have never presented at a PRP2 meeting: Pastor Clay from the Stepping Stones Outreach Facility; Mrs. Brenda McDuffie, President of the Buffalo Urban League; and Mr. Leroy Jones, House Manager at Supportive Living on Northrup.
PRP2 programs are sponsored by The Circle of Supporters for Reformed Offenders and Friends of BaBa Eng. For further information, contact Karima Amin: 716-834-8438; email.
Location: Pratt-Willert Community Center, 422 Pratt Street, Buffalo
LONG ISLAND meetings
TUESDAY FEB. 22 AND MARCH 8TH, 7:30PM PRISON FAMILIES ANONYMOUS (PFA) SUPPORT GROUP
For more information, please contact: Barbara: 631-943-0441 or Sue: 631-806-3903
MANHATTAN meetings
EVERY FRIDAY 6-9PM RIVERSIDE CHURCH BOOK STUDY GROUP - The New Jim Crow, Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Washington. For information on the study group contact Jazz Hayden email, 917-753-3771
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1-3:00PM NY REENTRY ROUNDTABLE
How Compstat-Based Zero Tolerance Policing Creates Reentry Barriers; NYPD’s Stop and Frisk Policies
Speakers:
Annette Warren Dickerson, Director of Education and Outreach, Center for Constitutional Rights
Prof. M. Chris Fabricant, Director of the Criminal Justice Clinic at Pace University School of Law and at John Jay Legal Services, Inc.
Loyda Colon from the Justice Committee
Please RSVP: Gabriel Torres Rivera, J.D., Director, Reentry Initiatives
grivera@cssny.org 212-614-5306 www.cssny.org
Location: The Community Service Society of New York (CSS)
105 East 22nd Street at the corner of Park Avenue South, Conference Room 4A
Take the 6 or N/R trains to 23rd Street
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 10 AM COALITION FOR WOMEN PRISONERS Strategic Planning Meeting
The Violence against Women Committee will introduce our new legislation, “The Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act” This will be a combination of the legislative meeting that was canceled in January and the Violence Against Women Committee Highlighted meeting, so we will still be welcoming guest speakers Tracie Gardner, Maggie Williams and Roberta Meyers-Peeples, and last but not least, we will be wishing a farewell to Serena at this meeting also.
Stacey Thompson (212) 254-5700 x333
Coalition Associate, Women in Prison Project, Correctional Association of New York
All meetings are held at the CA of NY
2090 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd, 124-125, Suite 200
2/3/A/C/B/D to 125th st.
NIAGARA FALLS meeting
EVERY THIRD TUESDAY, 6-7:30PM NIAGARA PRISON FAMILY SUPPORT GROUP
Claudia 236-0257 or email
2. THE CORRECTIONAL ASSOCIATION HAS APPOINTED J. SOFFIYAH ELIJAH TO BE THEIR NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR.
Ms. Elijah will serve as the Association’s first African-American executive director. ...Ms. Elijah comes to the Correctional Association from the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School, where she has been a clinical instructor for the past 11 years and the deputy director for the past eight years. ...A native New Yorker, Ms. Elijah practiced criminal and family law in New York City for more than 20 years. She was a member of the faculty and Director and supervising attorney of the Defender Clinic at the City University of New York School of Law and a supervising attorney at the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, and worked as a staff attorney for the Juvenile Rights Division of the Legal Aid Society.
Ms. Elijah will join the staff of the Correctional Association on March 14, 2011. She will succeed Robert Gangi, who has served as Executive Director since 1983. During Mr. Gangi’s 29-year tenure, the Correctional Association has grown into a powerful and effective multi-million dollar advocacy organization.
3. FORMERLY INCARCERATED PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT
From February 28th -- March 2nd, Alabama will play host to formerly incarcerated activists from across the country as they convene in an effort to organize what may well be our nation's next major civil rights movement.
The conference, which is being organized by a steering committee comprised of prisoner rights and criminal justice reform activist leaders, [including NYC's Tina Reynolds, cofounder of WORTH] will draft a campaign platform calling for the restoration of civil rights, a halt to prison expansion, the elimination of excessive punishments, and the protection of the rights and dignity of family members of the incarcerated. Conference events, which are slated to occur in Montgomery, Dothan, and Selma, will include a backwards march over Edmund Pettis Bridge.
Who better to lead this movement than those who have first-hand experience of the dehumanizing, unjust nature of our prison system? They know all too well the inequities that exist within the system, the abuses that occur behind prison walls, the suffering that families of prisoners must endure, and the struggle that those returning from prison face in the search for housing, jobs, and a sense of belonging.
In this incarceration nation, where more than 2.3 million people wake up each morning behind bars, and another 10 million are on some form of court supervision, few of us remain untouched by the demolition caused by the system's wrath, but none are more equipped to spearhead the fight for reform than those whose lives have been most directly affected.
The recent prisoner strike in Georgia has been integral in building the critical mass necessary for a successful campaign. Thousands of people have demonstrated solidarity with Georgia's prisoners - and their demands for decent living conditions, fair wages for work, access to families, vocational and self-improvement programs, educational opportunities, access to health care, and an end to cruel and unusual punishment - through signing online letters of support. The convention in Alabama is yet another step towards the formation of a strong, determined leadership core for the movement - one that will demand the attention of decision makers and inspire others to act.
A number of grassroots prisoner rights, criminal justice reform, and service organizations are rallying in support of this movement. Among them are All of Us or None, World Conference of Mayors, Drug Policy Alliance, Equal Justice Initiative, Prodigal Child Project, National Justice Coalition, A New Way of Life, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, Women on the Rise Telling HerStory (WORTH), Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE), MN Second Chance Coalition, and The Ordinary People Society.
The convention in Alabama will be followed by another gathering in Los Angeles, slated for November 11, 2011.
4. MICHELLE ALEXANDER AND ANGELA DAVIS DISCUSS INCARCERATION AS A SYSTEM OF RACIAL CONTROL
WBAI 99.5 FM: Building Bridges: Your Community & Labor Report, Produced & Hosted by Mimi Rosenberg and Ken Nash A Building Bridges Special
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
with Michelle Alexander, civil rights advocate and litigator, author
and Angela Davis, Professor, University of California, Santa Cruz;a leading advocate in the movement to end the prison-industrial complex.
The program aired on February 7 but you can listen to it until June 7 on their archives.
5. MONEY OR MORALITY: MICHELLE ALEXANDER DEBATES WHETHER THE DRUG WARS ARE AN ECONOMIC ISSUE OR A MORAL ONE.
Obama's Drug War by Michelle Alexander | December 9, 2010, The Nation (http://www.thenation.com)
[Condensed from the published article]
For the first time in decades, politicians across the political spectrum, including some who were once "get tough" true believers, are wondering aloud whether the drug war has become too expensive.
Could this be the beginning of the end of the drug war, a war that has reportedly cost more than $1 trillion in the past few decades, with little to show for it beyond millions who have been branded criminals and felons, ushered behind bars and then released into a permanent second-class status? More than 30 million people have been arrested since 1982, when President Reagan turned Nixon's rhetorical "war against drugs" into a literal war against poor people of color. ... In some states, 80 to 90 percent of all drug offenders admitted to prison have been African-American, and when released they find themselves ushered into a parallel universe where they are stripped of many of the rights supposedly won during the civil rights movement. ... Could the economic crisis finally put an end to this madness? Is the drug war machinery that produced a vast new racial undercaste finally winding down?
Given the belt-tightening mood in Congress and the reluctance of the administration to show leadership on issues of race, the thinking goes, now is not the time to link drug law reform to a broader movement for racial justice. Ending our nation's racial divisions and anxieties is pie in the sky, a utopian dream. Better to stick with cost-benefit analyses of drug treatment versus incarceration, and show the public that it's cheaper to send a kid to college than to prison. The problem with that strategy is that it won't work, even during a time of economic crisis.
Why the pessimism? Two reasons. The first, and most obvious, is that the current economic crisis cuts both ways. The same fiscal concerns that have inspired a growing number of states to reconsider harsh and expensive mandatory minimum sentences have also inspired the Obama administration to increase funding for failed law enforcement initiatives, like the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) and the Byrne grant program—two programs the Bush Administration had begun to phase out.
... a peer-reviewed study in the journal Criminology found that the COPS program, despite the hype and the cost—more than $8 billion—"had little or no effect on crime." ... These programs have successfully ushered millions of poor folks of color into a permanent undercaste—largely for engaging in the same types of minor drug crimes that go ignored in middle-class white communities and on college campuses.
....The channeling of stimulus dollars to law enforcement may help some keep their jobs, but as New York Times columnist Charles Blow recently observed, it's a "callous political calculus.... The fact that they are ruining the lives of hundreds of thousands of black and Hispanic men and, by extension, the communities they belong to barely seems to register."
This brings us to the second, and more important, reason fiscal concerns won't end mass incarceration: the race card will be played by those who seek to preserve the system. In the absence of a major social movement that proactively deals with race in a constructive way, old racial divisions will trump new concerns about cost.
If you doubt that's the case, consider what is at stake. If we were to return to the rates of incarceration our nation had in the 1970s—a time, by the way, when many civil rights advocates thought incarceration rates were egregiously high—we would need to release four out of five people currently behind bars. More than a million people employed by the criminal justice system could lose their jobs. Most new prison construction has occurred in predominantly white, rural communities already teetering on the edge of economic collapse. Those prisons across America would have to close. Private prison companies and all the corporate interests that profit from caging human beings would be forced to watch their earnings vanish.
... Few people would openly argue that we should lock up millions of poor people just so other people can have jobs or get a good return on their private investments. Instead, familiar arguments would likely resurface about the need to be "tough" on "them"—a group of people defined in the media and political discourse not so subtly as black and brown.
Although colorblind cost-benefit approaches often seem pragmatic in the short run, in the long run they are counterproductive. They leave intact the racial attitudes, stereotypes and anxieties that gave rise to the system in the first place. The problem lies in the nature of the system itself, not the cost. And the only way to dismantle the system is by building a broad coalition of Americans unwilling to accept it at any price.
Martin Luther King Jr. could have argued that separate water fountains were too expensive, a waste of money. He would have been right about that. But cost was beside the point. It should be beside the point today.
6. NYS PAROLE REFORM CAMPAIGN
The NYS Parole Reform Campaign has two subcommittees, the Strategy Team and the Policy Committee.
The Strategy Team is planning ways to move the SAFE Parole Act forward.
The Strategy Team has received signatures from the following 51 organizations attesting to their support for the SAFE Parole Act: Albany Political Prisoners Support Committee, All Things Harlem, Binghamton Justice Projects, The Bronx Defenders, Brooklyn Defender Services, Buffalo Local Action Committee (BLAC), Center for Community Alternatives, Center for Law and Justice, Citizens Against Recidivism, Inc., Coalition for Parole Restoration (CPR), College and Community Fellowship, Community Service Society of New York, The Correctional Association of New York, The Drug Policy Alliance, Erie County Prisoners Rights Coalition, Exponents, Families Rally for Emancipation and Empowerment (FREE!), The Fortune Society, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC), In Your Face Movement, Inside Out Art, Inc., Interfaith Coalition of Advocates for Reentry and Employment (ICARE), Legal Action Center, Narcofreedom Inc., Nassau Inmate Advocacy Group, Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, NYC Jericho Movement, New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NYSACDL), New York State Defenders Association, New York State Defenders Justice Fund, The Osborne Association, Prison Action Network, Prison Families Anonymous, Prison Policy Initiative, Prisoners Are People Too!, Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York, RIFT SUCCESS, RIFT SUCCESS 2nd Chance Division, Riverside Church Prison Ministry, Second Chance Committee, The Sentencing Project, Social Justice Center of Albany, Social Responsibility Council of the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany, SOhopeful of New York, Southern Tier Advocacy & Mitigation Project, Incorporated, TASC of the Capital District, The Think Outside the Cell Foundation, Inc., VOCAL New York, Western NY Peace Center, WORTH Women on the Rise Telling HerStory, Youth Represent.
What a great feeling it is to have so much support! We're not alone!!!!
The Campaign will be taking part in the NYSPJN Legislative Advocacy day planned for May 3. Parole reform will be one of the issues so we are hoping to get a large turnout from all the Campaign's membership organizations. Members of PAN will give a briefing on the SAFE Parole Act, followed by visits to your representatives.
On another note, we are looking for volunteers to translate our Campaign literature into Spanish, and to design our website's logo. If you are willing and able to donate your time to either of these important tasks, please email parole.reform@gmail.com or write the NYS Parole Reform Campaign at PO Box 6355, Albany NY 12206. Thank you!
PURPOSE AND INTENT STATEMENT FOR THE SAFE AND FAIR EVALUATIONS (SAFE) PAROLE ACT
DELETION OF SUBDIVISION 1: This section of the statute is outdated and no longer relevant. In 1980, the legislature placed the full responsibility for setting the minimum period of imprisonment on the courts, determining that the courts were better suited than the Parole Board to perform this function. Since the change in 1980, the courts have set the minimum for all indeterminate sentences.
THE INTERVIEW SHALL TAKE PLACE WITH ALL PARTIES PRESENT IN THE SAME ROOM: In-person interviews result in a more engaged, effective and meaningful process for parole applicants and parole commissioners. By increasing the opportunity for fairness, concern and serious consideration, such hearings increase the applicants’ trust in the process and in the goal of reintegration. At the same time, by their very nature, in-person hearings create an environment in which the parole board can more fully and fairly evaluate applicants.
THE INTERVIEW SHALL BE RECORDED AUDIO/VISUALLY: Videotaping interviews ensures that the final record is accurate and comprehensive, and eliminates the mistakes and omissions commonly found in transcripts. Recording the interviews in this way allows for a more effective review of the hearing, the atmosphere in which it takes place and the demeanor of all parties—and holds everyone accountable for their conduct. The cost of videotaping hearings and providing copies, when requested, to parole applicants is more than offset by the savings realized by eliminating the cost of stenographers and, in many cases, the cost of transcripts.
NO DOCUMENTS THAT ARE AVAILABLE TO THE PAROLE BOARD SHALL BE CONSIDERED CONFIDENTIAL EXCEPT WHEN FOR THE SAFETY OF THE PAROLE APPLICANT: Providing for full disclosure to the applicant of those documents that are already available to the Parole Board for consideration results in greater transparency, fairness and trust in the parole process. With full and fair disclosure, the applicant can address errors or other information, thereby ensuring a more accurate portrayal of him/her on which to base the board’s decision.
WITH THE PAROLE APPLICANT’S CONSENT, A COPY OF HIS/HER PSYCHIATRIC EVALUATION AND “PAROLE RELEASE PLAN” SHALL BE MADE AVAILABLE TO A REQUESTING VICTIM, OR VICTIM’S REPRESENTATIVE. THE PAROLE BOARD SHALL CONSIDER SUPPORTIVE OR CRITICAL INPUT FROM THE VICTIM CONCERNING BEHAVIOR OF THE PAROLE APPLICANT POST-SENTENCING: This change provides more information than ever before to victims and their representatives, who have typically been uninformed about the parole applicant’s progress while incarcerated, and alienated from the parole process. With this kind of information, victims have a more complete picture of the parole applicant’s behavior since sentencing and his/her readiness for release, and they can provide input in the parole process in a more meaningful way.
RELEASE ON PAROLE SHALL BE GRANTED FOR GOOD CONDUCT AND EFFICIENT PERFORMANCE OF DUTIES WHILE CONFINED, AND PREPAREDNESS FOR REENTRY AND REINTEGRATION INTO SOCIETY, THEREBY PROVIDING A REASONABLE BASIS TO CONCLUDE THAT, IF SUCH PERSON IS RELEASED, HE OR SHE WILL LIVE AND REMAIN AT LIBERTY WITHOUT VIOLATING THE LAW: With this change, the parole board is given more specific, workable criteria by which to determine parole releases. It requires the board to more thoroughly evaluate whatever changes have taken place in the parole applicant since sentencing, based on his/her institutional record, behavior and other reliable indicators while confined.
THE PAROLE BOARD WILL BE REQUIRED TO STATE IN DETAIL THE SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS FOR ACTIONS TO BE TAKEN, PROGRAMS OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS TO BE COMPLETED, OR CHANGES IN PERFORMANCE, OR CONDUCT TO BE MADE, OR CORRECTIVE ACTION OR ACTIONS TO BE TAKEN, IN ORDER TO QUALIFY FOR PAROLE RELEASE: Requiring the Parole Board to explicitly set forth detailed conditions for release is consistent with the proposed New York State Transitional Accountability Plan (TAP), which was a collaboration between the Department of Correctional Services and the Division of Parole. This change makes for good corrections, providing a fairer, more thoughtful and transparent process by which the Parole Board can make determinations regarding current and future release. It also alleviates the frustration and confusion experienced by parole applicants when they are not given clear and complete instructions regarding what they must do in order to meet the expectations of the next Parole Board. In the end, this change holds everyone accountable—the applicant, the Department of Correctional Services and the Parole Board.
THE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONAL SERVICES SHALL PROVIDE TO THE PAROLE APPLICANT ACCESS—WITHIN 90 DAYS—TO THE PROGRAM OR PROGRAMS, ACTIVITIES AND/OR FACILITIES NEEDED IN ORDER TO PROVIDE THE OPPORTUNITY TO FULFILL THE REQUIREMENTS SET FORTH BY THE PAROLE BOARD: Having created goals and expectations for the parole applicant, good and consistent corrections practices require that the applicant be given the opportunity to meet these goals. Such opportunities must be made available quickly, in order to take advantage of the applicant’s heightened motivation and willingness to participate. Doing so is also in keeping with the proposed TAP, and it promotes collaboration between Parole and Corrections.
THE PAROLE APPLICANT SHALL BE SCHEDULED FOR A REAPPEARANCE BEFORE THE BOARD UPON COMPLETION OF THE STIPULATED REQUIREMENTS, OR AFTER 24 MONTHS, WHICHEVER COMES FIRST. IF THE REQUIREMENTS PREVIOUSLY SET FORTH BY THE PAROLE BOARD HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED, RELEASE SHALL BE GRANTED: This change requires the initial Parole Board to be more thoughtful, thorough and specific regarding the evaluation of and expectations for the parole applicant. For example, at an applicant’s first parole hearing, the Parole Board must make a thorough, detailed assessment of the applicant’s strengths and deficits. Should the applicant be denied parole at that first hearing, the Parole Board must provide specific, detailed criteria that the applicant must fulfill in order to address the deficits. Once all criteria are fulfilled, and if the applicant’s record remains satisfactory, the applicant must be released.
7. PAROLE NEWS
The Governor's Budget Bill calls for reducing the number of Parole Commissioners to 13, which is the current number who were listed in last month's Building Bridges. Chairwoman Evans stated that with video conferencing being expanded beyond the current 26 facilities, it will be a manageable task.
The bill also combines DOCS and the Division of Parole into one agency called the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, with the Parole Board remaining an administratively independent decision-making body.
DECEMBER 2010 PAROLE BOARD RELEASES – A1 VIOLENT FELONS – DIN #s through 1999 unofficial research from parole database
Total Interviews...... # Released.... # Denied....... Rate of Release
19 Initials.............................. 3.................... 16.................. 16%
63 reappearances................... 12.................. 51.................. 19%
82 Total................................. 15.................. 67.................. 18%
Initial Releases
Facility......... Sentence..... Offense
Clinton.......... 25-Life........... Murder 2
Fishkill.......... 20-Life........... Murder 2
Mid Orange... 25-Life........... Murder 2
Reappearances
Facility......... Sentence...... Offense.......... # of Board
Attica............ 7-Life............. M2 (JO)........ 6th
Clinton.......... 1 ?-Life.......... Murder 2....... 6th
Eastern.......... 25-Life........... Murder 2....... 6th
Fishkill.......... 15-Life........... Murder 2....... 8th
Fishkill.......... 20-Life........... Murder 2....... 3rd
Fishkill.......... 15-Life........... Murder 2....... 6th
Mid Orange... 18 ?-Life........ Murder 2....... 6th
Mid Orange... 20-Life........... Murder 2....... 5th
Mid Orange... 15-Life........... Murder 2....... 3rd *for deportation only
Woodbourne.. 17-Life........... Murder 2....... 6th
Wyoming....... 15-Life........... Murder 2....... 7th
Wyoming....... 2 ?-5.............. M2 (JO?)......... 6th
8. THINK OUTSIDE THE CELL FOUNDATION NATIONAL SYMPOSIUM AND CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
On Sept 24, 2011, at the historic Riverside Church in New York City, this event will provide an opportunity for those with prison in their backgrounds to raise their voices and be heard on issues affecting the incarcerated, the formerly incarcerated and their loved ones,
The deeply moving anthologies in the Think Outside the Cell series, which Building Bridges featured in its last newsletter, will provide the framework for the symposium, a program of the Think Outside the Cell Foundation that is being presented with generous funding from the Ford Foundation and in full partnership with the College and Community Fellowship and the Fortune Society’s David Rothenberg Center for Public Policy. The event is a reflection of the Think Outside the Cell Foundation’s mission to overturn the dehumanizing stereotypes of men, women and children who live in the long shadow of prison, and to help members of this population embrace their personal power. The books that the Foundation publishes also reflect that mission.
For more information: email, or call 877-267-2303
Following are excerpts from the three anthologies in the Think Outside the Cell Series:
The Hard Journey Home: Real-Life Stories About Reentering Society After Incarceration
“I was seventy-three years old and alone… In those early months after coming home, I had only two depend-able companions. One was loneliness. It sets in quietly in prison, and you accept it. But on the streets, it’s palpable. The other companion was fear. I was scared to death of life on the outside.” -Larry White, “From Reentry to Reintegration”
Counting the Years: Real-Life Stories About Waiting for Loved Ones to Return Home from Prison
“My mother is scheduled to come home later this year. I started out waiting for her like a bird on a perch—still, watchful, uneasy. I was afraid to use my voice to sing. I was afraid to fly, as if I had committed the crime myself, as if my own wings were clipped, as if I were chained and bound by her actions.” -Jennifer Collins, “The Long Road Home”
Love Lives Here, Too: Real-Life Stories About Prison Marriages and Relationships
“I could rationalize why she felt the need to escape from a relationship with a man in prison. It probably seemed to her that I was on another planet… Maybe when she went back to the real world, she needed to still have someone there. On the other hand, if she truly loved me, wouldn’t she be here for me, no matter what the circumstances?” - Patrick Stephens, “The Ugly Butterfly”
To order books, please contact the publisher
The Foundation is now accepting submissions from people who are currently incarcerated for a book that will feature practical ways that incarcerated persons can “give back” to their communities. To contribute, simply write a two-page piece, including: 1) The name of the specific activity or volunteer service you would use in order to give back (for example, a prison-based book drive), 2) One or two paragraphs about why the activity is important, how it can help the community and what community/societal problem your activity addresses, 3) In simplest terms, a brief step-by-step guide on how incarcerated persons, either individually or as a group, can carry out the activity/volunteer service.
Submissions for this project are due by April 15, 2011, and should be sent to: The Think Outside the Cell Foundation, 511 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 525, NY, NY 10011
If you would like to join Prison Action Network please send a note and a donation to PAN, PO Box 6355, Albany NY 12206. You may also call us at 518 253 7533.
Friday, January 14, 2011
JANUARY 2011
Post-publication announcements (scroll down to go directly to the January issue):
POSTED 2/11 by In Your Face Movement
Sunday February 13, 3 pm - THE NYC AWARENESS RALLY SERIES
PART IV -"MODERNIZED SLAVERY - UNITY & LOVE"
Slavery, it was never abolished, it was merely adjusted
If you think slavery is not taking place in 2011 you are sadly mistaken. Formulate an educated opinion before formulating an opinion at all. IYF is bringing the truths of this Prison Industrial Complex no matter how bad it may hurt! For one to remove the pain, they must first feel it!! Wake UP!! You are either working on revealing this system or you are supporting it.
"UNITY & LOVE"...
A seemingly impossible task, yet the solution IS really this simple.
Unity is the combined effort to give heightened awareness to all things; be it out of line or different than popular belief. Unnity is protection from behind when battling ahead. Unity is commitment to the larger picture. Unity is all by itself the only entity that cannot be by itself. Our goal is collectively join forces!!! To reveal the miscarriages of justice and in-turn bring about JUSTICE!!!!!!
Register TODAY at www.inyourface.evenbrite.com
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1:00 – 3:00PM NY Reentry Roundtable
How Compstat-Based Zero Tolerance Policing Creates Reentry Barriers; NYPD’s Stop and Frisk
Annette Warren Dickerson,Director of Education and Outreach, Center for Constitutional Rights will discuss current legal and advocacy efforts to address the NYPD’s Stop and Frisk policies and share the results of a comprehensive analysis of this practice included in CCR’s report of October 2010.
Also, Loyda Colon from the Justice Committee has graciously agreed to join in as a guest speaker. She will discuss Cop Watch as a tactic for police accountability and community empowerment.
I look forward to seeing you on February 16th. Please RSVP.
Gabriel Torres Rivera, J.D.
Director, Reentry Initiatives
grivera@cssny.org
212-614-5306
www.cssny.org
Location: The Community Service Society of New York (CSS)
105 East 22nd Street at the corner of Park Avenue South
Conference Room 4A
Take the 6 or N/R trains to 23rd Street
PRISON ACTION NETWORK NEEDS FINANCIAL SUPPORT FROM OUR MEMBERS AND READERS. PLEASE DONATE.
We are running out of money to publish Building Bridges. All of our incarcerated members pay a membership fee and receive Building Bridges. Many cannot afford to make membership donations large enough to cover the cost of their newsletter. We are hoping you will bridge the gap. Please join Prison Action Network by sending us a yearly membership donation. It isn't fair that those in prison are carrying the full responsibility for supporting the newsletter that others benefit from as well. Whatever you can afford will be gratefully accepted. Donations (as small as $1, if that's all you can afford) may be sent to PAN at PO Box 6355, Albany NY 12206. Thank you for your support.
Building Bridges
January 15, 2011
Dear Reader,
I imagine you heard what our new Governor, Andrew Cuomo, said in his first State of the State speech on January 6: “An incarceration program is not an employment program. If people need jobs, let’s get people jobs. Don’t put other people in prison to give some people jobs. That’s not what this state is all about, and that has to end.” No matter what his motives for saying it were, and I prefer to believe it was from a moral sense of right and wrong, he’s on record saying it and I, for one, plan to remind him of it in every letter, call, or email I send to him for as long as he’s in office! Those words were not only in the speech, they were the most impassioned part of it, and he received strong applause for them! I was amazed! [See NY Times editorial, article 2, for more.]
We have learned about a much needed event on January 29 at Columbia University's School of Social Work (see below, under events): REMOVING THE BARS CONFERENCE: A SKILLS-BASED CONFERENCE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, Moving beyond increasing awareness to building skills!! If they weren't having this workshop, PAN would have to! The only problem is they don't list NYS Parole Reform Campaign on their list of organizations presenting a workshop. We think denial of parole releases to community ready men and women is a bar to successful reentry. If you agree, why not suggest it to them? Regardless, we'll be there with our literature, our questions, and open minds to learn some new skills.
Please be well, keep the faith, share the news, and get involved!
Index of Articles
1. Actions, meetings and events happening around the state this month
2. A good place to start cutting; NY Times article on Cuomo’s speech
3. Job opportunities with the Legal Action Center
4. The New Jim Crow, chapter 3 quotes
5. NYS Parole Reform Campaign report
6. NYS Prisoner Justice Network Report
7. Parole news
8. Prison suicides, by Mary Beth Pfeiffer
9. Think Outside the Cell adds 3 books to its series
[For copies of any document, article or legislation referred to, or condensed, in this issue, please send your request to PAN clearly stating the name of the document and the date of the Building Bridges in which it was seen -Ed.]
1. ACTIVISM: ACTIONS, MEETINGS AND EVENTS HAPPENING AROUND THE STATE THIS MONTH:
ACTIONS
Making the acquaintance of the State Legislators who represent you. Have you called, written, or visited? Do you know how to reach them? The freedom of your loved one may depend on it. Call us if you need help. 518 253 7533
EVENTS:
ALBANY
MONDAY JANUARY 10, 7:00PM – 8:30PM PFNY SPEAKER SERIES
Sheilah A. Rourke, LMSW, Executive Director - Clinical Care, The Altamont Program, Inc
All Welcome – Free and Confidential, call 518-453-6659 for more information
Location: The Women’s Building, 373 Central Ave, Albany NY
LONG ISLAND
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 17, 5:30 PM (SNOW DATE MAR 3RD) PRISON FAMILIES ANONYMOUS
THE VISITORS- A FILM
Hosted by the Criminal Law Society of Touro Law Center.
This film depicts the emotional journey taken by a group of NY families as they travel to distant prisons in order to maintain ties to their incarcerated loved ones. Time will be allotted for a discussion after the movie, and members of Prison Families Anonymous will be available to answer questions
Location: Touro Law School, (auditorium), 225 Eastview Drive, Central Islip, NY 11722..
MANHATTAN:
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 6-8PM THE N Y.C. BAR ASSOCIATION CORRECTIONS COMMITTEE
NEW APPROACHES TO HELPING INCREASE ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION.
Alan Rosenthal, Center for Community Alternatives' Co-Director of Justice Strategies will participate in a panel discussion hosted by the New York City Bar Association on the increase in conviction history questions for college applications. Alan will be reviewing the findings from CCA's survey of colleges and universities that examined the ways that institutions of higher education collect and use criminal history information. Joining Alan on the panel will be Vivian Nixon, Executive Director and Lettisha Boyd, Junior Associate, both from the College and Community Fellowship. Laurie Parise, Executive Director of YouthRepresent will be the moderator.
To register for this free event: please visit www.nycbar.org.
Location: NYC Bar Association, 42 West 44th Street, New York, New York
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 26, 7-9PM NYC MILK NOT JAILS ICE CREAM SOCIAL
Presentations by Sabrina Jones & Kevin Pyle, illustrators of the Real Cost of Prisons Comix.
Learn about what milk and jails have to do with one another. Enjoy ice cream and entertainment. Find out what you can do.
The Real Cost of Prisons Comix provides a crash course in what drives mass incarceration, the human and community costs, and how to stop the numbers from going even higher. Over 125,000 copies of the comic books have been printed and more than 100,000 have been sent to families of people who are incarcerated, people who are incarcerated, and to organizers and activists throughout the country.
Location: Exit Art Gallery, 475 Tenth Avenue, New York, NY
SATURDAY, JANUARY 29TH, 8:30 AM - 6:30 PM COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK CRIMINAL JUSTICE CAUCUS
REMOVING THE BARS CONFERENCE:
A SKILLS-BASED CONFERENCE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Moving beyond increasing awareness to building skills!!
Free admission! Breakfast and lunch will be served!
Location: 1255 Amsterdam Ave. (between 121st and 122nd), Manhattan, NY
[A,B,C or D to 125th; 1 to 125th; M11 or M60 buses]
Workshop leaders and presentations from formerly incarcerated people as well as leading organizations including the Children’s Defense Fund, Osborne Association, St. Luke Roosevelt Hospital, Safe Horizon Mediation Center, Families for Freedom, GEMS, Bronx Defenders and many more!
Workshops (to date):
NYS Juvenile Justice System and Policy Advocacy
NYS Adult Re-entry Systems, Processes & Services
Problem-solving Courts: Steps to making the change
Mental Health & Substance Abuse Services for Adults & Juveniles
Restorative Justice & Victims’ Services
Immigration & the Criminal Justice System
Understanding the unique issues of girls & women: Sex trafficking & Abuse
Unique issues of LGBTQ people in the CJ/Prison systems
Policing communities of color: Stop & Frisk in NYC
Supporting People with Loved Ones in Prison
Education & Employment for Formerly Incarcerated People
Benefits & Voting Rights of Formerly Incarcerated People
School to Prison Pipeline
Positive Youth Development: Working with Youth in the Juvenile Justice System
REGISTER TODAY!
For more information or to register, please email or call 973.271.7579.
March 19, 2011 SAVE THE DATE!
MICHELLE ALEXANDER SPEAKING ON THE NEW JIM CROW
Sponsored by Riverside Church Lecture Series and Campaign for Black Male Achievement; Open Society Foundations Details to be announced. To help with planning, please contact Jazz Hayden (917) 753-3771
MEETINGS:
ALBANY:
EVERY MONDAY 7-8:30 PM PRISON FAMILIES OF NY SUPPORT GROUP MEETINGS
We Help Each Other! Location: 373 Central Avenue Albany
For information contact Alison 518-453-6659
EVERY TUESDAY AT 6PM P-MOTIONS (PROGRESSIVE MEN OPERATING TOWARDS INITIATING OPPORTUNITIES NOW)
A men's support group which meets weekly at the SEFCU building, 388 Clinton Ave (look for the bright red roof). Facilitation shared by Sam Wiggins, Monroe Parrott and Malik Rivera. For information call Malik at 518 445-5487.
BROOKLYN:
EVERY WEDNESDAY AT 5:30PM VOCAL PAROLEES ORGANIZING PROJECT
Visit www.VotingRightsForNewYork.org and join us to build power among people who are formerly incarcerated to reduce mass incarceration and fight discrimination against people with criminal records. For more info call 917 676-8041, or jeremy@vocal-ny.org; www.VOCAL-NY.org
Location: 80A 4th Ave. in Brooklyn
BUFFALO:
EVERY WEDNESDAY FROM 5-6 PM ERIE COUNTY PRISONERS RIGHTS COALITION demonstration in front of the Erie County Holding Center, corner of Delaware and Church, in Buffalo. Stand for ending abuse.
MONDAY, JANUARY 31, 6:30–8:30PM PRISONERS ARE PEOPLE TOO MEETING
Launched in 1997, WE-TV (Women’s Entertainment Television) is a cable television channel marketed towards women. For the first few years of its existence, this channel featured mostly talk shows, made-for-TV movies, older feature films and reruns of TV shows. Since 2001, the focus has shifted to include several reality series and documentaries, some related to art and fashion and others related to more political issues. The channel’s slogan is “Life as WE know it.” One of the channel’s most popular programs is “Women Behind Bars.” One of the women featured in this WE-TV series is former Buffalo resident Renay Lynch. Charged with murdering her elderly landlady, she maintains her innocence. She is currently incarcerated in Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester, County New York.
At our meeting we will view the brief WE-TV documentary that tells Renay’s story. Our guest speaker will be Renay’s son, Mr. Rinaldo Moss, a young husband, father, and local businessman who has graciously consented to amplify his mother’s story and to answer any questions you may have about her crime of conviction and her current circumstances.
The Circle of Supporters for Reformed Offenders and Friends of BaBa Eng are the sponsors of PRP2 programs. For further information, contact Karima Amin: 716-834-8438 or karima@prisonersarepeopletoo.org.
Location: Pratt-Willert Community Center, 422 Pratt Street
LONG ISLAND:
TUESDAY JANUARY 25 AND FEBRUARY 11, AT 7:30PM PRISON FAMILIES ANONYMOUS (PFA) SUPPORT GROUP
The PFA Support Group provides a safe, nonjudgmental place where those in similar situations can connect with each another. It provides compassion, support and information to family members during their very difficult times. For more information, please contact: Barbara: 631- 943-0441 or Sue: 631-806-3903
Location: Community Presbyterian Church
1843 Deer Park Ave., Deer Park, NY
MANHATTAN:
COALITION FOR WOMEN PRISONERS’ JANUARY MEETING SCHEDULE
Thursday January 6, 10:30-12noon Incarcerated Mothers Committee
Thursday January 13, 5:30-7 Violence Against Women Committee
Friday January 28, 4:30-6pm Conditions and Reentry Committee (and every 4th Friday of the month)
Stacey Thompson, Women in Prison Project Coalition Associate. 212 254 5700 x 333 or sthompson@correctionalassociation.org
All meetings are held at the CA of NY
2090 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd, 124-125, Suite 200
2/3/A/C/B/D to 125th st.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 18, 6:30-8:30PM MILK NOT JAILS CAMPAIGN MEETING
Join MILK NOT JAILS for our first campaign planning meeting. Find out more about the campaign's plans and goals. Help us define the MILK NOT JAILS' political platform. Help us build new economic and political alliances between farmers and consumers. Get involved! For more information, contact milknotjails@gmail.com
Location: 666 Broadway 6th Floor.
Directions: Take B/D/F/V/6 trains to Broadway-Lafayette subway stop.
Not in NYC? Join the meeting by phone!
(712) 775-7200; Access Code: 257 779#.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 1-3PM NEW YORK REENTRY ROUNDTABLE
Guest Speaker: John Valverde, Director of The Osborne Association’s Green Career Center. We’ll be discussing ways to connect the formerly incarcerated with jobs in the growing field of environmentally friendly “green” employment.
Gabriel Torres Rivera, J.D. Director, Reentry Initiatives, Legal Department
212-614-5306 www.cssny.org
EVERY FRIDAY 6-9PM - RIVERSIDE CHURCH BOOK STUDY GROUP - THE NEW JIM CROW, MASS INCARCERATION IN THE AGE OF COLORBLINDNESS, BY MICHELLE WASHINGTON (SEE ARTICLE #4)
For information on the study group contact Rev. Alison Alpert; Jazz Hayden, 917-753-3771; Larry White, 646-796-4203.
Location: Riverside Church, 91 Claremont Ave, (north of 120th St , one blk west of Bdwy.)
Ask at the front desk for directions to Room 10T in the MLK Building
NIAGARA FALLS:
TUESDAY, JANUARY 18, 6-7:30PM NIAGARA PRISON FAMILY SUPPORT GROUP
For further information and to leave a confidential message: Claudia 236-0257 or e-mail niagarafamilies@aol.com.
Location: Niagara Falls Public Library 1425 Main St. 2nd fl.
2. A GOOD PLACE TO START CUTTING, JANUARY 7, 2011 THE NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL: GOV. ANDREW CUOMO STRUCK JUST THE RIGHT TONE ON BOTH ADULT PRISON REFORM AND JUVENILE JUSTICE REFORM IN HIS FIRST STATE OF THE STATE ADDRESS ON WEDNESDAY. HE SAID THAT NEW YORK COULD NO LONGER AFFORD TO KEEP HUGELY EXPENSIVE BUT UNNEEDED FACILITIES OPEN TO SERVE AS “AN EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM” FOR UPSTATE RESIDENTS.
To get the Legislature to agree to shut these facilities, Mr. Cuomo will have to push back hard against the corrections workers’ unions that have thwarted sound closure proposals from all three of his predecessors.
The case for closures is laid out in a new analysis by the Correctional Association of New York, a nonprofit group. New York’s prison population has dropped from about 71,500 at its peak in 1999 to around 56,000 today. This has left more than 8,000 empty beds, meaning that the state could close or significantly downsize eight to 10 of the 67 units in the system and still have ample room to handle any unexpected spike in the population. The savings would be $220 million in the first year.
The state could also save money by reversing misguided criminal-justice policies. In 1995, Gov. George Pataki prohibited people convicted of violent crimes from participating in work-release programs. That order cut the number of participants from nearly 28,000 in 1994 to about 2,500 in 2007, the most recent year for which the association has data.
The point of Mr. Pataki’s order was to protect the public from violent offenders, but it may well have had the opposite effect. Once they had done their time, inmates were dumped onto the streets without any chance to reacclimate and find their place in the community. Work-release programs cost about $7,500 per participant annually, as opposed to about $55,000 to keep one person behind bars. Increasing the number of participants to just 5,000 would save more than $80 million a year.
The state also needs to reform a parole system that returns as many as 8,000 inmates a year to prison for technical violations like breaking curfew. Other states have shown that they can keep the prison count down, at no risk to the public, by increasing supervision of violators instead of reflexively bouncing them back to jail.
These will be tough political fights. But for the sake of both fiscal sanity and sound public policy, they are ones that Governor Cuomo needs to fight and win.
3. JOB OPPORTUNITIES WITH THE LEGAL ACTION CENTER
Paralegal / Legal Assistant
Working with staff at LAC’s New York City office, the paralegal assists people with HIV/AIDS, alcohol or drug histories or criminal records. Time permitting, there may be opportunities to participate in public policy advocacy.
Qualifications:
College degree and related work experience or, in the absence of a college degree, very significant work experience in a similar position for at least 2 years
Excellent communication, advocacy, analytic and writing skills required
Bilingual ability in English and Spanish strongly preferred.
Program/Database Administrator (Part-Time)
To manage the administration of the Center’s government contracts and foundation grants. From the initial grant/contract applications through the final reports, the P/DBA will work with the internal team (Program Directors, Fiscal, and Support Staff ) to ensure that work is delivered on time and on budget and is reported accurately and cogently to the funder. The position requires approximately 15 hours per week.
Qualifications:
• Three to five years of program and/or database management experience or the equivalent education and experience
• Demonstrated expertise with Excel and database operation, especially Access
Legal Internships (New York) The Legal Action Center accepts resumes from second and third year law students to work part-time during the fall and spring semesters, and full-time throughout the summer. The work involves legal research and writing, litigation assistance, client intake, policy analysis and other activities. Much of the work is done in the areas of constitutional and civil rights law, employment discrimination, and the administration of the criminal justice system. Excellent research and writing skills are required.
To apply, please send a cover letter, resume and writing sample to the Legal Action Center, Attn: Legal Intern Coordinator, 225 Varick St., 4th Fl, New York, NY 10014; fax: (212) 675-0286.
Other Internships - Beginning January 2011
The Legal Action Center seeks an unpaid intern to help New Yorkers with criminal records overcome discriminatory barriers to jobs or housing.
Legal Action Center is an equal opportunity employer.
Salary commensurate with experience. Excellent benefits. Please send resume and cover letter (no calls) by email to lacinfo@lac.org. Please put your name in the subject line. If you are unable to email your application, you may mail it to: Human Resources, Legal Action Center, 225 Varick Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10014
4. THE NEW JIM CROW, MICHELLE WASHINGTON’S BOOK, THE NEW JIM CROW, INCARCERATION IN THE AGE OF COLORBLINDNESS, QUOTES FROM CHAPTER 3, THE COLOR OF JUSTICE
Quoting Jerome Miller, former executive director of the National Center for Institutions and Alternatives: "There are certain code words that allow you never to have to say "race," but everybody knows that's what you mean, and "crime" is one of these.... so when we talk about locking up more and more people, what we're really talking about is locking up more and more black men.." and Melissa Hickman Barlow, who wrote, "it is unnecessary to speak directly of race [today] because speaking about crime is talking about race." p.103
5. NYS PAROLE REFORM CAMPAIGN - PRESENTATION AT IN YOUR FACE RALLY III; 38 ORGANIZATIONS HAVE SIGNED IN SUPPORT; REPORT FROM THE STRATEGY TEAM; PUBLICATION OF PAROLE REFORM ARTICLE BY POLICY GROUP MEMBER.
By the time you read this, Judith Brink will have made a presentation of the NYS Parole Reform Campaign's Safe and Fair Evaluations (S.A.F.E.) Parole Act at the January 15 In Your Face Awareness Rally, Part III. We went to press on Jan 14, so as I write it's still in the future. As you probably know, the Coalition for Fair Criminal Justice Policies, which was created by the people who attended FED 4 in 2009, has been working for the past 2 years on a legislative proposal which will remove the nature of the crime as a reason for denying parole, plus make the hearings fairer in many other ways. It's completed, and if you've been reading Building Bridges you probably have read about it.
When the In Your Face organizers heard about it, they asked us to come and talk at their Awareness Rally, Part II, and it got such a good response we've been invited back for a repeat performance with more time. We will go through the proposal, now called The Safe and Fair Evaluation (S.A.F.E.) Parole Act, point by point, so that participants will be able to explain it to others, including their legislative representatives. We'll also discuss how a bill becomes a law. Materials will be provided.
LETTER OF SUPPORT FROM ORGANIZATIONS: As we go to print, we have 38 signatures on the letter supporting The S.A.F.E. Parole Act:, and we invite more organizations to sign on. If you are a member of, or receive services from, any organization not already listed, please encourage them to represent your interests by publicly promoting changes which will bring you hope.
REPORT FROM THE STRATEGY TEAM: We are excited about the possibilities opening up for dialogue with victims or survivors of crime. We’ve had several meetings with members of Families and Friends of Murder Victims and were impressed with how many values we shared, particularly the feeling of alienation from the criminal justice system. We also were impressed with a presentation by Gabrielle Sered of Common Justice, who talked about people she meets, 95% of those commonly thought of as victims because they’ve been harmed, who don’t think of themselves as victims. We’re hoping to meet with some of them to explore mutual support of parole reforms.
Because of our focus on parole denials based on the nature of the crime, we are trying to find out what the percentage is for A1 Violent Offenders. If you know where we can find that statistic, please let us know.
Thousand Kites Narrative Campaigns for Justice has offered to teach 3-5 of our supporters to use FLIP video techniques to capture stories to use to build our campaign for The SAFE Parole Act. The videos would be uploaded to a website designed for that purpose. If you would be interested in becoming a camera person, or know someone else who might, please call us at 518 253 7533. To qualify the person needs to be someone supportive of our campaign. Thousand Kites will supply the cameras. The strategy team will work together with the camera people to define the message. http://www.kitescampaigns.org/campaign/
The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) has invited advocates with a complicated issue that they’d like to see visualized - that they’d like to educate their constituency about - to apply for an issue of Making Policy Public, their series of foldout posters that use graphic and information design to explore and explain complex public policy issues. Advocates chosen through the juried submission process will receive 1000 copies of the color publication to distribute directly to their constituents and an honorarium. We are applying. For more info visit their websites: www.anothercupdevelopment.org, www.makingpolicypublic.net, www.envisioningdevelopment.net
The Campaign will be taking part in the NYSPJN Legislative Advocacy day planned for early May. Parole reform will be one of the issues, and we are hoping to get a large turnout from PAN members, particularly those who were part of Family Empowerment Day 4. Representatives of The Coalition for Fair Criminal Justice Policies will give a briefing on the SAFE Parole Act.
Alan Rosenthal, a member of our Policy Committee, will have an article about parole reform published in the February issue of ATTICUS, the newsletter of the NYS Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, one of our supporting organizations.
6. NYS PRISONER JUSTICE NETWORK REPORT
On November 29, the New York State Prisoner Justice Network held a regional meeting in Buffalo hosted by Karima Amin and Prisoners Are People Too. After hearing presentations about the Prisoner Justice Network and the Parole Reform Campaign, participants expressed support and discussed ways to bring about needed changes in the system.
On December 4, the Prisoner Justice Network held a regional meeting in New York City, hosted by Shoshana Brown of the Bronx Defenders. After presentations about the Prisoner Justice Network, Parole Reform, the Public Defender System, and the successful campaign against prison-based gerrymandering, participants engaged in a lively discussion.
Based on the suggestions from the regional meetings, the Network decided to plan a Legislative Awareness Day for Spring 2011. The goals will be to bring diverse Prisoner Justice groups and individuals together, to urge legislators to make specific changes, and to raise the voices of those opposed to the current system of injustice.
The New York State Prisoner Justice Network can be reached by mail at 33 Central Avenue, Albany NY 12210 or by email at nysprisonerjustice@gmail.com.
7. PAROLE NEWS: NAMES OF COMMISSIONERS, NOVEMBER STATISTICS, LOW RECIDIVISM RATE FOR PEOPLE ON PAROLE WHO WERE CONVICTED OF MURDER
NAMES OF CURRENT PAROLE BOARD COMMISSIONERS:
Andrea W. Evans, Walter Wm. Smith, Jr., James Ferguson, Christina Hernandez, G. Kevin Ludlow, Gerald J. Greenan III, Lisa Beth Elovich, Henry Lemons, Sally Thompson, Michael A Hagler, Mary Ross, Joseph Crangle, Jared Brown
NOVEMBER 2010 PAROLE BOARD RELEASES – A1 VIOLENT FELONS – DIN #s through 1999
unofficial research from parole database
TOTAL INTERVIEWS......# Released.......# Denied......Rate of Release
13 initials * ........................0...................13...................0%
91 reappearances..............19...................72.................21%
104 Total...........................19...................85.................18%
NOVEMBER REAPPEARANCES
FACILITY................... SENTENCE..... OFFENSE....... # OF BOARD
Bare Hill..................... 1 ?-Life.......... Murder 2........ 5th
Bedford Hills.............. 15-Life........... Murder 2........ 6th
Bedford Hills.............. 25-Life........... Murder 2........ 5th
Elmira........................ 15-Life........... Murder 2........ 9th
Green Haven............. 15-Life........... Consprcy 1.... 2nd
Green Haven............. 22 ?-L............ Murder 2........ 3rd
Greene...................... 18-Life........... Murder 2........ 6th **
Mid Orange................ 15-Life........... Murder 2........ 5th
Mid Orange................ 25-Life........... Murder 2........ 2nd
Mid Orange................ 20-Life........... Murder 2........ 3rd
Orleans...................... 15-Life........... Murder 2........ 5th
Otisville......................25-Life........... Murder 2........ 5th
Otisville......................20-Life........... Murder 2........ 6th
Shawangunk............. 15-Life........... Att M1............ 8th
Sing Sing................... 15-Life........... Murder 2........ 3rd
Washington............... 10?-L............. Murder 2........ 4th
Woodbourne.............. 15-Life........... Arson 1......... 2nd
Woodbourne.............. 20-Life........... Murder 2........ 4th
Woodbourne.............. 25-Life........... Murder 2........ 2nd
*One initial hearing was a medical parole hearing for a female. She was denied.
**Special Consideration Hearing
BUILDING BRIDGES IS IN NEED OF A VOLUNTEER to assist in gathering the parole release statistics each month. It requires about 2 days of work a month. Please call for more information: 518 253 7533.
LOW RECIDIVISM RATE REPORTED FOR PAROLED NY A1 VIOLENT OFFENDERS
Of 368 convicted murderers granted parole in New York between 1999 and 2003, six, or 1.6 percent,were returned to prison within three years for a new felony conviction - none of them a violent offense, says a state Parole Board study reported by the Journal News in White Plains, N.Y. The board reported that of 1,190 convicted murderers released from 1985 to 2003 in New York state, 35, or just under 3 percent, returned to prison for a new felony conviction within three years.
"Individuals who are released on parole after serving sentences for murder consistently have the lowest recidivism rate of any offenders," said John Caher, a spokesman for the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services. A 2002 study by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics tracking 272,000 inmates released in New York and 14 other states found that 1.2 percent of those freed after serving a murder sentence were rearrested on homicide charges within three years - the lowest rate among all reported crimes by released prisoners. "This is a very difficult issue, and unless we lock everyone up for life they're all coming back sooner or later," said Martin Horn, a former New York City corrections and probation commissioner who now teaches at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Journal News (White Plains, N.Y.)
ALSO: Data released by the NY State Division of Parole at a legislative hearing briefing in February 2010 for releases during 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 states that during those four years 784 people were released from NY State Prison who were serving life sentences on A-1 violent felonies. Of the number only 2 were returned to DOCS on new criminal charges. That is a remarkably low recidivism rate of 1/4 of 1 percent.
8. PRISON SUICIDES RISE; OFFICIALS DENY TREND. THE FIGURES SHOW THAT TWICE AS MANY SUICIDES OCCURRED THIS YEAR AS IN 2008 OR 2009. MOREOVER, WHILE PRISON SUICIDE IS SOMETIMES PRONE TO SPIKING IN INDIVIDUAL YEARS, A LONGER-TERM TREND IS CLEAR — THE SUICIDE RATE ROSE 23 PERCENT FROM THE 1990S TO THE 2000S, ACCORDING TO A POUGHKEEPSIE JOURNAL ANALYSIS.
Mary Beth Pfeiffer • Poughkeepsie Journal • December 26, 2010
Condensed from published article:
...Among the suicides this year,..two were in Downstate Correctional Facility in Fishkill and one in Shawangunk prison in Wallkill. They are among eight state prisons in Dutchess and Ulster counties that employ nearly 4,400 people and house 7,700 inmates, 165 of them sentenced by local counties. Prison officials acknowledged the suicide rate was at a two-decade high but noted that suicides fluctuate, reaching 18 in both 2005 and 2007. "We do not regard this year's total as the beginning of a trend, since the numbers have gone up and down," said Erik Kriss, director of public information.
...But inmate advocates expressed concern and said the 2010 deaths reflected a system that is failing to treat troubled inmates. "A prison sentence shouldn't be the equivalent of a death sentence," said Robert Gangi, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, a prison watchdog group, who noted that 11 suicides occurred among inmates not receiving psychiatric care. "Obviously they needed mental health services or they wouldn't have killed themselves."
..."The figures are shocking and tragic," said Harvey Rosenthal, executive director of the New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services, a coalition of mental health providers and consumers. He faulted the overuse of disciplinary confinement — where six suicides occurred — which he and Gangi called "toxic" to mentally ill inmates.
...The prison suicide rate in the 2000s was 19.7 deaths per 100,000 inmates, the Journal analysis found, compared to a rate of 16 deaths in the 1990s. The latest one-year rate was 39.2 suicides per 100,000 inmates in 2010, according to prison system figures; the last time it surpassed that was in 1982, when it was 47.9. By contrast, New York state as a whole had a suicide rate of 6.9 per 100,000 residents in 2006, the latest figure available, 49th lowest nationally.
...The news comes as the prison population declines — 19 percent since 1999. It also follows major improvements in prison mental health care, including the addition of about 400 special-unit beds for schizophrenic, severely depressed and bipolar inmates, and better monitoring of difficult-to-manage mentally ill inmates who are placed in solitary confinement.
...The changes were made in response to a lawsuit, settled in 2007, that had linked suicides to poor mental health care and prolonged 23-hour-a-day confinement in special housing units, or what inmates call the "Box" — cells with solid doors, few personal possessions and minimal human contact.
...Daniels, the mental health spokeswoman, said, "Prisoners with mental health needs receive the treatment they need for as long as is needed," and provided figures showing that the caseload is rising again. She said she saw no connection between the drop in caseload since 2008 and the suicide numbers.
...Risk Of The 'Box': Beck and other advocates said mentally ill inmates - especially those receiving no care — are at special risk when placed in the Box and another form of disciplinary housing called "keeplock" where their behavior may deteriorate under stressful conditions. "It is inevitable that some of these people are going to harm themselves," Beck said. "The level of self-harm is high."
...The share of inmates who killed themselves in the Box, almost always by hanging, is lower than in previous years — 10 percent in 2010 compared to 29 percent from 1998 to 2009. But two additional suicides occurred among inmates with solitary confinement sentences, including one who Beck said was living in a unit with conditions similar to the Box and with inmates who had likely spent years there. In addition, four inmates killed themselves in keeplock, figures show.
..."We have long maintained that these solitary and keeplock confinements are not appropriate for the most vulnerable of inmates," Rosenthal said.
...Limits On Punishment:: Kriss, the prison spokesman, countered that the lawsuit settlement limited Box time for seriously ill inmates to 30 days and further limits will take effect next July. "Any suicide is a serious matter," said Kriss in an e-mail. "We continue to try to improve our policies and procedures for detecting and preventing suicides and providing potentially suicidal offenders the help, treatment and programming they need." New correction officers get three days of mental health training, he said, while officers in solitary confinement units receive four hours annually of instruction.
...Although Kriss saw no upward trend, the prison agency's own report on suicides from 2000 to 2009 shows an increase in the rate — up 22 percent from 16.9 per 100,000 in the first five years to 20.6 in the second.
Reach Mary Beth Pfeiffer at mbpfeiff@poughkeepsiejournal.com or 845-437-4869.
9. THE THINK OUTSIDE THE CELL SERIES - INTERVIEW WITH THE EDITOR, SHEILA RULE
The series began with Joe Robinson’s Thinking Outside the Cell, Entrepreneurship for the Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated and has just added 3 more books: Love Lives Here, Too: Real-Life Stories about Prison Marriages and Relationships; Counting the Years: Real-Life Stories about Waiting for Loved Ones to Return Home from Prison; and The Hard Journey Home: Real-Life Stories about Reentering Society after Incarceration. Sheila Rule is a member of Prison Action Network and a valued member of our advisory board. I asked her to let me interview her about these books, which I found remarkable in their ability to present the human beings behind the stereotypes. You might think I'm biased because of our friendship, but I suggest you read the books and then decide whether I am or not.
WHEN DID YOU FIRST HAVE THE IDEA FOR THESE BOOKS? WHO IS/WAS YOUR INTENDED AUDIENCE? The seeds for the books were planted when I became a volunteer with the Riverside Church Prison Ministry nearly a decade ago. I was asked to correspond with incarcerated men and women who wrote to the ministry. Although generally viewed as faceless statistics or frightening stereotypes, the people I came to know through letters were multidimensional, complex human beings, like the rest of us. They were much greater than the bad choices they’d made. And they so inspired me that I eventually decided to start and devote myself to a book publishing company that, as its mission, would seek to present to society a fairer, more balanced view of the incarcerated, the formerly incarcerated and their loved ones through books that would allow them a voice, feature their stories and help them tackle some of the hard challenges they face.
It was Joseph (Donkor) Robinson--one of the incarcerated men who wrote to the Prison Ministry, and who is now my husband—who suggested that I develop a series of books that portray the realities, gifts, and diversity of experiences of people with prison in their backgrounds. As for the audience we’re trying to reach, the books are intended for anyone who has a thinking mind and a beating heart.
HOW DID YOU FIND THE WRITERS? We sponsored two nationwide writing contests that we advertised and promoted online, primarily through Building Bridges and Pro Se and other organizations that serve the incarcerated, the formerly incarcerated and their families. Our mailbox overflowed with hundreds of submissions—there were more than 400 entries in the second contest alone—and we were honored to read them. Interestingly, a good number of the winners in the first contest were from California, which is understandable, given the size of its prison population. In the second contest, New York State really represented.
EVERYONE’S STORY REVEALED A LOT OF PRETTY DEEP PERSONAL STUFF. BUT SINCE WE ARE FRIENDS, I WAS ESPECIALLY CONSCIOUS OF HOW MUCH YOU REVEALED OF YOURSELF THAT I DIDN’T ALREADY KNOW ABOUT YOU. HOW DOES IT FEEL TO EXPOSE YOURSELF THAT WAY IN PRINT? I tend to write from the heart, which can be quite revealing—even to myself.And what I’ve found is that when I reveal my heart to others, they often reveal theirs to me.
WHAT DO YOU HAVE PLANNED FOR THE FUTURE? WILL THERE BE MORE BOOKS IN THE SERIES? WILL THERE BE OTHER SERIES? We have several books planned, including additions to the series. And the anthologies in the series will provide the framework for a unique national symposium in September of this year, on issues affecting the incarcerated, the formerly incarcerated and their loved ones. The symposium—to be held at the historic Riverside Church in New York City—will bring together hundreds of people who live in the long shadow of prison and allow them to raise their voices and speak their truths in the same hallowed space where the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. raised his voice against the Vietnam War, where Nelson Mandela raised his voice as a symbol of resistance, courage and hope, where Angela Davis raised her voice against the prison industrial complex and “slave labor of the 21st Century.” The symposium, a program of the Think Outside the Cell Foundation that I recently founded, is being presented with generous funding from the Ford Foundation and in full partnership with the College and Community Fellowship and the Fortune Society’s David Rothenberg Center for Public Policy. I’ll tell you more about the symposium in the weeks and months ahead.
HOW CAN PEOPLE PURCHASE COPIES? The books can be purchased on our website, or by sending a check or money order to us at this address:
Resilience Multimedia, 511 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 525, New York, NY 10011
The books cost $14.95 each. Purchasers of all three books in the series receive free shipping. Otherwise, shipping costs $3.50 for media mail. NYS residents must add 8.875 percent sales tax. For more information, people should feel free to contact us at resiliencemultimedia@verizon.net, or 877-267-2303, or at the above address.
Building Bridges is published by Prison Action Network as our way of communicating with our members.
If you would like to join us, please send a note.
POSTED 2/11 by In Your Face Movement
Sunday February 13, 3 pm - THE NYC AWARENESS RALLY SERIES
PART IV -"MODERNIZED SLAVERY - UNITY & LOVE"
Slavery, it was never abolished, it was merely adjusted
If you think slavery is not taking place in 2011 you are sadly mistaken. Formulate an educated opinion before formulating an opinion at all. IYF is bringing the truths of this Prison Industrial Complex no matter how bad it may hurt! For one to remove the pain, they must first feel it!! Wake UP!! You are either working on revealing this system or you are supporting it.
"UNITY & LOVE"...
A seemingly impossible task, yet the solution IS really this simple.
Unity is the combined effort to give heightened awareness to all things; be it out of line or different than popular belief. Unnity is protection from behind when battling ahead. Unity is commitment to the larger picture. Unity is all by itself the only entity that cannot be by itself. Our goal is collectively join forces!!! To reveal the miscarriages of justice and in-turn bring about JUSTICE!!!!!!
Register TODAY at www.inyourface.evenbrite.com
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1:00 – 3:00PM NY Reentry Roundtable
How Compstat-Based Zero Tolerance Policing Creates Reentry Barriers; NYPD’s Stop and Frisk
Annette Warren Dickerson,Director of Education and Outreach, Center for Constitutional Rights will discuss current legal and advocacy efforts to address the NYPD’s Stop and Frisk policies and share the results of a comprehensive analysis of this practice included in CCR’s report of October 2010.
Also, Loyda Colon from the Justice Committee has graciously agreed to join in as a guest speaker. She will discuss Cop Watch as a tactic for police accountability and community empowerment.
I look forward to seeing you on February 16th. Please RSVP.
Gabriel Torres Rivera, J.D.
Director, Reentry Initiatives
grivera@cssny.org
212-614-5306
www.cssny.org
Location: The Community Service Society of New York (CSS)
105 East 22nd Street at the corner of Park Avenue South
Conference Room 4A
Take the 6 or N/R trains to 23rd Street
PRISON ACTION NETWORK NEEDS FINANCIAL SUPPORT FROM OUR MEMBERS AND READERS. PLEASE DONATE.
We are running out of money to publish Building Bridges. All of our incarcerated members pay a membership fee and receive Building Bridges. Many cannot afford to make membership donations large enough to cover the cost of their newsletter. We are hoping you will bridge the gap. Please join Prison Action Network by sending us a yearly membership donation. It isn't fair that those in prison are carrying the full responsibility for supporting the newsletter that others benefit from as well. Whatever you can afford will be gratefully accepted. Donations (as small as $1, if that's all you can afford) may be sent to PAN at PO Box 6355, Albany NY 12206. Thank you for your support.
Building Bridges
January 15, 2011
Dear Reader,
I imagine you heard what our new Governor, Andrew Cuomo, said in his first State of the State speech on January 6: “An incarceration program is not an employment program. If people need jobs, let’s get people jobs. Don’t put other people in prison to give some people jobs. That’s not what this state is all about, and that has to end.” No matter what his motives for saying it were, and I prefer to believe it was from a moral sense of right and wrong, he’s on record saying it and I, for one, plan to remind him of it in every letter, call, or email I send to him for as long as he’s in office! Those words were not only in the speech, they were the most impassioned part of it, and he received strong applause for them! I was amazed! [See NY Times editorial, article 2, for more.]
We have learned about a much needed event on January 29 at Columbia University's School of Social Work (see below, under events): REMOVING THE BARS CONFERENCE: A SKILLS-BASED CONFERENCE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, Moving beyond increasing awareness to building skills!! If they weren't having this workshop, PAN would have to! The only problem is they don't list NYS Parole Reform Campaign on their list of organizations presenting a workshop. We think denial of parole releases to community ready men and women is a bar to successful reentry. If you agree, why not suggest it to them? Regardless, we'll be there with our literature, our questions, and open minds to learn some new skills.
Please be well, keep the faith, share the news, and get involved!
Index of Articles
1. Actions, meetings and events happening around the state this month
2. A good place to start cutting; NY Times article on Cuomo’s speech
3. Job opportunities with the Legal Action Center
4. The New Jim Crow, chapter 3 quotes
5. NYS Parole Reform Campaign report
6. NYS Prisoner Justice Network Report
7. Parole news
8. Prison suicides, by Mary Beth Pfeiffer
9. Think Outside the Cell adds 3 books to its series
[For copies of any document, article or legislation referred to, or condensed, in this issue, please send your request to PAN clearly stating the name of the document and the date of the Building Bridges in which it was seen -Ed.]
1. ACTIVISM: ACTIONS, MEETINGS AND EVENTS HAPPENING AROUND THE STATE THIS MONTH:
ACTIONS
Making the acquaintance of the State Legislators who represent you. Have you called, written, or visited? Do you know how to reach them? The freedom of your loved one may depend on it. Call us if you need help. 518 253 7533
EVENTS:
ALBANY
MONDAY JANUARY 10, 7:00PM – 8:30PM PFNY SPEAKER SERIES
Sheilah A. Rourke, LMSW, Executive Director - Clinical Care, The Altamont Program, Inc
All Welcome – Free and Confidential, call 518-453-6659 for more information
Location: The Women’s Building, 373 Central Ave, Albany NY
LONG ISLAND
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 17, 5:30 PM (SNOW DATE MAR 3RD) PRISON FAMILIES ANONYMOUS
THE VISITORS- A FILM
Hosted by the Criminal Law Society of Touro Law Center.
This film depicts the emotional journey taken by a group of NY families as they travel to distant prisons in order to maintain ties to their incarcerated loved ones. Time will be allotted for a discussion after the movie, and members of Prison Families Anonymous will be available to answer questions
Location: Touro Law School, (auditorium), 225 Eastview Drive, Central Islip, NY 11722..
MANHATTAN:
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 6-8PM THE N Y.C. BAR ASSOCIATION CORRECTIONS COMMITTEE
NEW APPROACHES TO HELPING INCREASE ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION.
Alan Rosenthal, Center for Community Alternatives' Co-Director of Justice Strategies will participate in a panel discussion hosted by the New York City Bar Association on the increase in conviction history questions for college applications. Alan will be reviewing the findings from CCA's survey of colleges and universities that examined the ways that institutions of higher education collect and use criminal history information. Joining Alan on the panel will be Vivian Nixon, Executive Director and Lettisha Boyd, Junior Associate, both from the College and Community Fellowship. Laurie Parise, Executive Director of YouthRepresent will be the moderator.
To register for this free event: please visit www.nycbar.org.
Location: NYC Bar Association, 42 West 44th Street, New York, New York
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 26, 7-9PM NYC MILK NOT JAILS ICE CREAM SOCIAL
Presentations by Sabrina Jones & Kevin Pyle, illustrators of the Real Cost of Prisons Comix.
Learn about what milk and jails have to do with one another. Enjoy ice cream and entertainment. Find out what you can do.
The Real Cost of Prisons Comix provides a crash course in what drives mass incarceration, the human and community costs, and how to stop the numbers from going even higher. Over 125,000 copies of the comic books have been printed and more than 100,000 have been sent to families of people who are incarcerated, people who are incarcerated, and to organizers and activists throughout the country.
Location: Exit Art Gallery, 475 Tenth Avenue, New York, NY
SATURDAY, JANUARY 29TH, 8:30 AM - 6:30 PM COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK CRIMINAL JUSTICE CAUCUS
REMOVING THE BARS CONFERENCE:
A SKILLS-BASED CONFERENCE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Moving beyond increasing awareness to building skills!!
Free admission! Breakfast and lunch will be served!
Location: 1255 Amsterdam Ave. (between 121st and 122nd), Manhattan, NY
[A,B,C or D to 125th; 1 to 125th; M11 or M60 buses]
Workshop leaders and presentations from formerly incarcerated people as well as leading organizations including the Children’s Defense Fund, Osborne Association, St. Luke Roosevelt Hospital, Safe Horizon Mediation Center, Families for Freedom, GEMS, Bronx Defenders and many more!
Workshops (to date):
NYS Juvenile Justice System and Policy Advocacy
NYS Adult Re-entry Systems, Processes & Services
Problem-solving Courts: Steps to making the change
Mental Health & Substance Abuse Services for Adults & Juveniles
Restorative Justice & Victims’ Services
Immigration & the Criminal Justice System
Understanding the unique issues of girls & women: Sex trafficking & Abuse
Unique issues of LGBTQ people in the CJ/Prison systems
Policing communities of color: Stop & Frisk in NYC
Supporting People with Loved Ones in Prison
Education & Employment for Formerly Incarcerated People
Benefits & Voting Rights of Formerly Incarcerated People
School to Prison Pipeline
Positive Youth Development: Working with Youth in the Juvenile Justice System
REGISTER TODAY!
For more information or to register, please email or call 973.271.7579.
March 19, 2011 SAVE THE DATE!
MICHELLE ALEXANDER SPEAKING ON THE NEW JIM CROW
Sponsored by Riverside Church Lecture Series and Campaign for Black Male Achievement; Open Society Foundations Details to be announced. To help with planning, please contact Jazz Hayden (917) 753-3771
MEETINGS:
ALBANY:
EVERY MONDAY 7-8:30 PM PRISON FAMILIES OF NY SUPPORT GROUP MEETINGS
We Help Each Other! Location: 373 Central Avenue Albany
For information contact Alison 518-453-6659
EVERY TUESDAY AT 6PM P-MOTIONS (PROGRESSIVE MEN OPERATING TOWARDS INITIATING OPPORTUNITIES NOW)
A men's support group which meets weekly at the SEFCU building, 388 Clinton Ave (look for the bright red roof). Facilitation shared by Sam Wiggins, Monroe Parrott and Malik Rivera. For information call Malik at 518 445-5487.
BROOKLYN:
EVERY WEDNESDAY AT 5:30PM VOCAL PAROLEES ORGANIZING PROJECT
Visit www.VotingRightsForNewYork.org and join us to build power among people who are formerly incarcerated to reduce mass incarceration and fight discrimination against people with criminal records. For more info call 917 676-8041, or jeremy@vocal-ny.org; www.VOCAL-NY.org
Location: 80A 4th Ave. in Brooklyn
BUFFALO:
EVERY WEDNESDAY FROM 5-6 PM ERIE COUNTY PRISONERS RIGHTS COALITION demonstration in front of the Erie County Holding Center, corner of Delaware and Church, in Buffalo. Stand for ending abuse.
MONDAY, JANUARY 31, 6:30–8:30PM PRISONERS ARE PEOPLE TOO MEETING
Launched in 1997, WE-TV (Women’s Entertainment Television) is a cable television channel marketed towards women. For the first few years of its existence, this channel featured mostly talk shows, made-for-TV movies, older feature films and reruns of TV shows. Since 2001, the focus has shifted to include several reality series and documentaries, some related to art and fashion and others related to more political issues. The channel’s slogan is “Life as WE know it.” One of the channel’s most popular programs is “Women Behind Bars.” One of the women featured in this WE-TV series is former Buffalo resident Renay Lynch. Charged with murdering her elderly landlady, she maintains her innocence. She is currently incarcerated in Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester, County New York.
At our meeting we will view the brief WE-TV documentary that tells Renay’s story. Our guest speaker will be Renay’s son, Mr. Rinaldo Moss, a young husband, father, and local businessman who has graciously consented to amplify his mother’s story and to answer any questions you may have about her crime of conviction and her current circumstances.
The Circle of Supporters for Reformed Offenders and Friends of BaBa Eng are the sponsors of PRP2 programs. For further information, contact Karima Amin: 716-834-8438 or karima@prisonersarepeopletoo.org.
Location: Pratt-Willert Community Center, 422 Pratt Street
LONG ISLAND:
TUESDAY JANUARY 25 AND FEBRUARY 11, AT 7:30PM PRISON FAMILIES ANONYMOUS (PFA) SUPPORT GROUP
The PFA Support Group provides a safe, nonjudgmental place where those in similar situations can connect with each another. It provides compassion, support and information to family members during their very difficult times. For more information, please contact: Barbara: 631- 943-0441 or Sue: 631-806-3903
Location: Community Presbyterian Church
1843 Deer Park Ave., Deer Park, NY
MANHATTAN:
COALITION FOR WOMEN PRISONERS’ JANUARY MEETING SCHEDULE
Thursday January 6, 10:30-12noon Incarcerated Mothers Committee
Thursday January 13, 5:30-7 Violence Against Women Committee
Friday January 28, 4:30-6pm Conditions and Reentry Committee (and every 4th Friday of the month)
Stacey Thompson, Women in Prison Project Coalition Associate. 212 254 5700 x 333 or sthompson@correctionalassociation.org
All meetings are held at the CA of NY
2090 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd, 124-125, Suite 200
2/3/A/C/B/D to 125th st.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 18, 6:30-8:30PM MILK NOT JAILS CAMPAIGN MEETING
Join MILK NOT JAILS for our first campaign planning meeting. Find out more about the campaign's plans and goals. Help us define the MILK NOT JAILS' political platform. Help us build new economic and political alliances between farmers and consumers. Get involved! For more information, contact milknotjails@gmail.com
Location: 666 Broadway 6th Floor.
Directions: Take B/D/F/V/6 trains to Broadway-Lafayette subway stop.
Not in NYC? Join the meeting by phone!
(712) 775-7200; Access Code: 257 779#.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 1-3PM NEW YORK REENTRY ROUNDTABLE
Guest Speaker: John Valverde, Director of The Osborne Association’s Green Career Center. We’ll be discussing ways to connect the formerly incarcerated with jobs in the growing field of environmentally friendly “green” employment.
Gabriel Torres Rivera, J.D. Director, Reentry Initiatives, Legal Department
212-614-5306 www.cssny.org
EVERY FRIDAY 6-9PM - RIVERSIDE CHURCH BOOK STUDY GROUP - THE NEW JIM CROW, MASS INCARCERATION IN THE AGE OF COLORBLINDNESS, BY MICHELLE WASHINGTON (SEE ARTICLE #4)
For information on the study group contact Rev. Alison Alpert; Jazz Hayden, 917-753-3771; Larry White, 646-796-4203.
Location: Riverside Church, 91 Claremont Ave, (north of 120th St , one blk west of Bdwy.)
Ask at the front desk for directions to Room 10T in the MLK Building
NIAGARA FALLS:
TUESDAY, JANUARY 18, 6-7:30PM NIAGARA PRISON FAMILY SUPPORT GROUP
For further information and to leave a confidential message: Claudia 236-0257 or e-mail niagarafamilies@aol.com.
Location: Niagara Falls Public Library 1425 Main St. 2nd fl.
2. A GOOD PLACE TO START CUTTING, JANUARY 7, 2011 THE NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL: GOV. ANDREW CUOMO STRUCK JUST THE RIGHT TONE ON BOTH ADULT PRISON REFORM AND JUVENILE JUSTICE REFORM IN HIS FIRST STATE OF THE STATE ADDRESS ON WEDNESDAY. HE SAID THAT NEW YORK COULD NO LONGER AFFORD TO KEEP HUGELY EXPENSIVE BUT UNNEEDED FACILITIES OPEN TO SERVE AS “AN EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM” FOR UPSTATE RESIDENTS.
To get the Legislature to agree to shut these facilities, Mr. Cuomo will have to push back hard against the corrections workers’ unions that have thwarted sound closure proposals from all three of his predecessors.
The case for closures is laid out in a new analysis by the Correctional Association of New York, a nonprofit group. New York’s prison population has dropped from about 71,500 at its peak in 1999 to around 56,000 today. This has left more than 8,000 empty beds, meaning that the state could close or significantly downsize eight to 10 of the 67 units in the system and still have ample room to handle any unexpected spike in the population. The savings would be $220 million in the first year.
The state could also save money by reversing misguided criminal-justice policies. In 1995, Gov. George Pataki prohibited people convicted of violent crimes from participating in work-release programs. That order cut the number of participants from nearly 28,000 in 1994 to about 2,500 in 2007, the most recent year for which the association has data.
The point of Mr. Pataki’s order was to protect the public from violent offenders, but it may well have had the opposite effect. Once they had done their time, inmates were dumped onto the streets without any chance to reacclimate and find their place in the community. Work-release programs cost about $7,500 per participant annually, as opposed to about $55,000 to keep one person behind bars. Increasing the number of participants to just 5,000 would save more than $80 million a year.
The state also needs to reform a parole system that returns as many as 8,000 inmates a year to prison for technical violations like breaking curfew. Other states have shown that they can keep the prison count down, at no risk to the public, by increasing supervision of violators instead of reflexively bouncing them back to jail.
These will be tough political fights. But for the sake of both fiscal sanity and sound public policy, they are ones that Governor Cuomo needs to fight and win.
3. JOB OPPORTUNITIES WITH THE LEGAL ACTION CENTER
Paralegal / Legal Assistant
Working with staff at LAC’s New York City office, the paralegal assists people with HIV/AIDS, alcohol or drug histories or criminal records. Time permitting, there may be opportunities to participate in public policy advocacy.
Qualifications:
College degree and related work experience or, in the absence of a college degree, very significant work experience in a similar position for at least 2 years
Excellent communication, advocacy, analytic and writing skills required
Bilingual ability in English and Spanish strongly preferred.
Program/Database Administrator (Part-Time)
To manage the administration of the Center’s government contracts and foundation grants. From the initial grant/contract applications through the final reports, the P/DBA will work with the internal team (Program Directors, Fiscal, and Support Staff ) to ensure that work is delivered on time and on budget and is reported accurately and cogently to the funder. The position requires approximately 15 hours per week.
Qualifications:
• Three to five years of program and/or database management experience or the equivalent education and experience
• Demonstrated expertise with Excel and database operation, especially Access
Legal Internships (New York) The Legal Action Center accepts resumes from second and third year law students to work part-time during the fall and spring semesters, and full-time throughout the summer. The work involves legal research and writing, litigation assistance, client intake, policy analysis and other activities. Much of the work is done in the areas of constitutional and civil rights law, employment discrimination, and the administration of the criminal justice system. Excellent research and writing skills are required.
To apply, please send a cover letter, resume and writing sample to the Legal Action Center, Attn: Legal Intern Coordinator, 225 Varick St., 4th Fl, New York, NY 10014; fax: (212) 675-0286.
Other Internships - Beginning January 2011
The Legal Action Center seeks an unpaid intern to help New Yorkers with criminal records overcome discriminatory barriers to jobs or housing.
Legal Action Center is an equal opportunity employer.
Salary commensurate with experience. Excellent benefits. Please send resume and cover letter (no calls) by email to lacinfo@lac.org. Please put your name in the subject line. If you are unable to email your application, you may mail it to: Human Resources, Legal Action Center, 225 Varick Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10014
4. THE NEW JIM CROW, MICHELLE WASHINGTON’S BOOK, THE NEW JIM CROW, INCARCERATION IN THE AGE OF COLORBLINDNESS, QUOTES FROM CHAPTER 3, THE COLOR OF JUSTICE
Quoting Jerome Miller, former executive director of the National Center for Institutions and Alternatives: "There are certain code words that allow you never to have to say "race," but everybody knows that's what you mean, and "crime" is one of these.... so when we talk about locking up more and more people, what we're really talking about is locking up more and more black men.." and Melissa Hickman Barlow, who wrote, "it is unnecessary to speak directly of race [today] because speaking about crime is talking about race." p.103
5. NYS PAROLE REFORM CAMPAIGN - PRESENTATION AT IN YOUR FACE RALLY III; 38 ORGANIZATIONS HAVE SIGNED IN SUPPORT; REPORT FROM THE STRATEGY TEAM; PUBLICATION OF PAROLE REFORM ARTICLE BY POLICY GROUP MEMBER.
By the time you read this, Judith Brink will have made a presentation of the NYS Parole Reform Campaign's Safe and Fair Evaluations (S.A.F.E.) Parole Act at the January 15 In Your Face Awareness Rally, Part III. We went to press on Jan 14, so as I write it's still in the future. As you probably know, the Coalition for Fair Criminal Justice Policies, which was created by the people who attended FED 4 in 2009, has been working for the past 2 years on a legislative proposal which will remove the nature of the crime as a reason for denying parole, plus make the hearings fairer in many other ways. It's completed, and if you've been reading Building Bridges you probably have read about it.
When the In Your Face organizers heard about it, they asked us to come and talk at their Awareness Rally, Part II, and it got such a good response we've been invited back for a repeat performance with more time. We will go through the proposal, now called The Safe and Fair Evaluation (S.A.F.E.) Parole Act, point by point, so that participants will be able to explain it to others, including their legislative representatives. We'll also discuss how a bill becomes a law. Materials will be provided.
LETTER OF SUPPORT FROM ORGANIZATIONS: As we go to print, we have 38 signatures on the letter supporting The S.A.F.E. Parole Act:, and we invite more organizations to sign on. If you are a member of, or receive services from, any organization not already listed, please encourage them to represent your interests by publicly promoting changes which will bring you hope.
REPORT FROM THE STRATEGY TEAM: We are excited about the possibilities opening up for dialogue with victims or survivors of crime. We’ve had several meetings with members of Families and Friends of Murder Victims and were impressed with how many values we shared, particularly the feeling of alienation from the criminal justice system. We also were impressed with a presentation by Gabrielle Sered of Common Justice, who talked about people she meets, 95% of those commonly thought of as victims because they’ve been harmed, who don’t think of themselves as victims. We’re hoping to meet with some of them to explore mutual support of parole reforms.
Because of our focus on parole denials based on the nature of the crime, we are trying to find out what the percentage is for A1 Violent Offenders. If you know where we can find that statistic, please let us know.
Thousand Kites Narrative Campaigns for Justice has offered to teach 3-5 of our supporters to use FLIP video techniques to capture stories to use to build our campaign for The SAFE Parole Act. The videos would be uploaded to a website designed for that purpose. If you would be interested in becoming a camera person, or know someone else who might, please call us at 518 253 7533. To qualify the person needs to be someone supportive of our campaign. Thousand Kites will supply the cameras. The strategy team will work together with the camera people to define the message. http://www.kitescampaigns.org/campaign/
The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) has invited advocates with a complicated issue that they’d like to see visualized - that they’d like to educate their constituency about - to apply for an issue of Making Policy Public, their series of foldout posters that use graphic and information design to explore and explain complex public policy issues. Advocates chosen through the juried submission process will receive 1000 copies of the color publication to distribute directly to their constituents and an honorarium. We are applying. For more info visit their websites: www.anothercupdevelopment.org, www.makingpolicypublic.net, www.envisioningdevelopment.net
The Campaign will be taking part in the NYSPJN Legislative Advocacy day planned for early May. Parole reform will be one of the issues, and we are hoping to get a large turnout from PAN members, particularly those who were part of Family Empowerment Day 4. Representatives of The Coalition for Fair Criminal Justice Policies will give a briefing on the SAFE Parole Act.
Alan Rosenthal, a member of our Policy Committee, will have an article about parole reform published in the February issue of ATTICUS, the newsletter of the NYS Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, one of our supporting organizations.
6. NYS PRISONER JUSTICE NETWORK REPORT
On November 29, the New York State Prisoner Justice Network held a regional meeting in Buffalo hosted by Karima Amin and Prisoners Are People Too. After hearing presentations about the Prisoner Justice Network and the Parole Reform Campaign, participants expressed support and discussed ways to bring about needed changes in the system.
On December 4, the Prisoner Justice Network held a regional meeting in New York City, hosted by Shoshana Brown of the Bronx Defenders. After presentations about the Prisoner Justice Network, Parole Reform, the Public Defender System, and the successful campaign against prison-based gerrymandering, participants engaged in a lively discussion.
Based on the suggestions from the regional meetings, the Network decided to plan a Legislative Awareness Day for Spring 2011. The goals will be to bring diverse Prisoner Justice groups and individuals together, to urge legislators to make specific changes, and to raise the voices of those opposed to the current system of injustice.
The New York State Prisoner Justice Network can be reached by mail at 33 Central Avenue, Albany NY 12210 or by email at nysprisonerjustice@gmail.com.
7. PAROLE NEWS: NAMES OF COMMISSIONERS, NOVEMBER STATISTICS, LOW RECIDIVISM RATE FOR PEOPLE ON PAROLE WHO WERE CONVICTED OF MURDER
NAMES OF CURRENT PAROLE BOARD COMMISSIONERS:
Andrea W. Evans, Walter Wm. Smith, Jr., James Ferguson, Christina Hernandez, G. Kevin Ludlow, Gerald J. Greenan III, Lisa Beth Elovich, Henry Lemons, Sally Thompson, Michael A Hagler, Mary Ross, Joseph Crangle, Jared Brown
NOVEMBER 2010 PAROLE BOARD RELEASES – A1 VIOLENT FELONS – DIN #s through 1999
unofficial research from parole database
TOTAL INTERVIEWS......# Released.......# Denied......Rate of Release
13 initials * ........................0...................13...................0%
91 reappearances..............19...................72.................21%
104 Total...........................19...................85.................18%
NOVEMBER REAPPEARANCES
FACILITY................... SENTENCE..... OFFENSE....... # OF BOARD
Bare Hill..................... 1 ?-Life.......... Murder 2........ 5th
Bedford Hills.............. 15-Life........... Murder 2........ 6th
Bedford Hills.............. 25-Life........... Murder 2........ 5th
Elmira........................ 15-Life........... Murder 2........ 9th
Green Haven............. 15-Life........... Consprcy 1.... 2nd
Green Haven............. 22 ?-L............ Murder 2........ 3rd
Greene...................... 18-Life........... Murder 2........ 6th **
Mid Orange................ 15-Life........... Murder 2........ 5th
Mid Orange................ 25-Life........... Murder 2........ 2nd
Mid Orange................ 20-Life........... Murder 2........ 3rd
Orleans...................... 15-Life........... Murder 2........ 5th
Otisville......................25-Life........... Murder 2........ 5th
Otisville......................20-Life........... Murder 2........ 6th
Shawangunk............. 15-Life........... Att M1............ 8th
Sing Sing................... 15-Life........... Murder 2........ 3rd
Washington............... 10?-L............. Murder 2........ 4th
Woodbourne.............. 15-Life........... Arson 1......... 2nd
Woodbourne.............. 20-Life........... Murder 2........ 4th
Woodbourne.............. 25-Life........... Murder 2........ 2nd
*One initial hearing was a medical parole hearing for a female. She was denied.
**Special Consideration Hearing
BUILDING BRIDGES IS IN NEED OF A VOLUNTEER to assist in gathering the parole release statistics each month. It requires about 2 days of work a month. Please call for more information: 518 253 7533.
LOW RECIDIVISM RATE REPORTED FOR PAROLED NY A1 VIOLENT OFFENDERS
Of 368 convicted murderers granted parole in New York between 1999 and 2003, six, or 1.6 percent,were returned to prison within three years for a new felony conviction - none of them a violent offense, says a state Parole Board study reported by the Journal News in White Plains, N.Y. The board reported that of 1,190 convicted murderers released from 1985 to 2003 in New York state, 35, or just under 3 percent, returned to prison for a new felony conviction within three years.
"Individuals who are released on parole after serving sentences for murder consistently have the lowest recidivism rate of any offenders," said John Caher, a spokesman for the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services. A 2002 study by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics tracking 272,000 inmates released in New York and 14 other states found that 1.2 percent of those freed after serving a murder sentence were rearrested on homicide charges within three years - the lowest rate among all reported crimes by released prisoners. "This is a very difficult issue, and unless we lock everyone up for life they're all coming back sooner or later," said Martin Horn, a former New York City corrections and probation commissioner who now teaches at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Journal News (White Plains, N.Y.)
ALSO: Data released by the NY State Division of Parole at a legislative hearing briefing in February 2010 for releases during 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 states that during those four years 784 people were released from NY State Prison who were serving life sentences on A-1 violent felonies. Of the number only 2 were returned to DOCS on new criminal charges. That is a remarkably low recidivism rate of 1/4 of 1 percent.
8. PRISON SUICIDES RISE; OFFICIALS DENY TREND. THE FIGURES SHOW THAT TWICE AS MANY SUICIDES OCCURRED THIS YEAR AS IN 2008 OR 2009. MOREOVER, WHILE PRISON SUICIDE IS SOMETIMES PRONE TO SPIKING IN INDIVIDUAL YEARS, A LONGER-TERM TREND IS CLEAR — THE SUICIDE RATE ROSE 23 PERCENT FROM THE 1990S TO THE 2000S, ACCORDING TO A POUGHKEEPSIE JOURNAL ANALYSIS.
Mary Beth Pfeiffer • Poughkeepsie Journal • December 26, 2010
Condensed from published article:
...Among the suicides this year,..two were in Downstate Correctional Facility in Fishkill and one in Shawangunk prison in Wallkill. They are among eight state prisons in Dutchess and Ulster counties that employ nearly 4,400 people and house 7,700 inmates, 165 of them sentenced by local counties. Prison officials acknowledged the suicide rate was at a two-decade high but noted that suicides fluctuate, reaching 18 in both 2005 and 2007. "We do not regard this year's total as the beginning of a trend, since the numbers have gone up and down," said Erik Kriss, director of public information.
...But inmate advocates expressed concern and said the 2010 deaths reflected a system that is failing to treat troubled inmates. "A prison sentence shouldn't be the equivalent of a death sentence," said Robert Gangi, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, a prison watchdog group, who noted that 11 suicides occurred among inmates not receiving psychiatric care. "Obviously they needed mental health services or they wouldn't have killed themselves."
..."The figures are shocking and tragic," said Harvey Rosenthal, executive director of the New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services, a coalition of mental health providers and consumers. He faulted the overuse of disciplinary confinement — where six suicides occurred — which he and Gangi called "toxic" to mentally ill inmates.
...The prison suicide rate in the 2000s was 19.7 deaths per 100,000 inmates, the Journal analysis found, compared to a rate of 16 deaths in the 1990s. The latest one-year rate was 39.2 suicides per 100,000 inmates in 2010, according to prison system figures; the last time it surpassed that was in 1982, when it was 47.9. By contrast, New York state as a whole had a suicide rate of 6.9 per 100,000 residents in 2006, the latest figure available, 49th lowest nationally.
...The news comes as the prison population declines — 19 percent since 1999. It also follows major improvements in prison mental health care, including the addition of about 400 special-unit beds for schizophrenic, severely depressed and bipolar inmates, and better monitoring of difficult-to-manage mentally ill inmates who are placed in solitary confinement.
...The changes were made in response to a lawsuit, settled in 2007, that had linked suicides to poor mental health care and prolonged 23-hour-a-day confinement in special housing units, or what inmates call the "Box" — cells with solid doors, few personal possessions and minimal human contact.
...Daniels, the mental health spokeswoman, said, "Prisoners with mental health needs receive the treatment they need for as long as is needed," and provided figures showing that the caseload is rising again. She said she saw no connection between the drop in caseload since 2008 and the suicide numbers.
...Risk Of The 'Box': Beck and other advocates said mentally ill inmates - especially those receiving no care — are at special risk when placed in the Box and another form of disciplinary housing called "keeplock" where their behavior may deteriorate under stressful conditions. "It is inevitable that some of these people are going to harm themselves," Beck said. "The level of self-harm is high."
...The share of inmates who killed themselves in the Box, almost always by hanging, is lower than in previous years — 10 percent in 2010 compared to 29 percent from 1998 to 2009. But two additional suicides occurred among inmates with solitary confinement sentences, including one who Beck said was living in a unit with conditions similar to the Box and with inmates who had likely spent years there. In addition, four inmates killed themselves in keeplock, figures show.
..."We have long maintained that these solitary and keeplock confinements are not appropriate for the most vulnerable of inmates," Rosenthal said.
...Limits On Punishment:: Kriss, the prison spokesman, countered that the lawsuit settlement limited Box time for seriously ill inmates to 30 days and further limits will take effect next July. "Any suicide is a serious matter," said Kriss in an e-mail. "We continue to try to improve our policies and procedures for detecting and preventing suicides and providing potentially suicidal offenders the help, treatment and programming they need." New correction officers get three days of mental health training, he said, while officers in solitary confinement units receive four hours annually of instruction.
...Although Kriss saw no upward trend, the prison agency's own report on suicides from 2000 to 2009 shows an increase in the rate — up 22 percent from 16.9 per 100,000 in the first five years to 20.6 in the second.
Reach Mary Beth Pfeiffer at mbpfeiff@poughkeepsiejournal.com or 845-437-4869.
9. THE THINK OUTSIDE THE CELL SERIES - INTERVIEW WITH THE EDITOR, SHEILA RULE
The series began with Joe Robinson’s Thinking Outside the Cell, Entrepreneurship for the Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated and has just added 3 more books: Love Lives Here, Too: Real-Life Stories about Prison Marriages and Relationships; Counting the Years: Real-Life Stories about Waiting for Loved Ones to Return Home from Prison; and The Hard Journey Home: Real-Life Stories about Reentering Society after Incarceration. Sheila Rule is a member of Prison Action Network and a valued member of our advisory board. I asked her to let me interview her about these books, which I found remarkable in their ability to present the human beings behind the stereotypes. You might think I'm biased because of our friendship, but I suggest you read the books and then decide whether I am or not.
WHEN DID YOU FIRST HAVE THE IDEA FOR THESE BOOKS? WHO IS/WAS YOUR INTENDED AUDIENCE? The seeds for the books were planted when I became a volunteer with the Riverside Church Prison Ministry nearly a decade ago. I was asked to correspond with incarcerated men and women who wrote to the ministry. Although generally viewed as faceless statistics or frightening stereotypes, the people I came to know through letters were multidimensional, complex human beings, like the rest of us. They were much greater than the bad choices they’d made. And they so inspired me that I eventually decided to start and devote myself to a book publishing company that, as its mission, would seek to present to society a fairer, more balanced view of the incarcerated, the formerly incarcerated and their loved ones through books that would allow them a voice, feature their stories and help them tackle some of the hard challenges they face.
It was Joseph (Donkor) Robinson--one of the incarcerated men who wrote to the Prison Ministry, and who is now my husband—who suggested that I develop a series of books that portray the realities, gifts, and diversity of experiences of people with prison in their backgrounds. As for the audience we’re trying to reach, the books are intended for anyone who has a thinking mind and a beating heart.
HOW DID YOU FIND THE WRITERS? We sponsored two nationwide writing contests that we advertised and promoted online, primarily through Building Bridges and Pro Se and other organizations that serve the incarcerated, the formerly incarcerated and their families. Our mailbox overflowed with hundreds of submissions—there were more than 400 entries in the second contest alone—and we were honored to read them. Interestingly, a good number of the winners in the first contest were from California, which is understandable, given the size of its prison population. In the second contest, New York State really represented.
EVERYONE’S STORY REVEALED A LOT OF PRETTY DEEP PERSONAL STUFF. BUT SINCE WE ARE FRIENDS, I WAS ESPECIALLY CONSCIOUS OF HOW MUCH YOU REVEALED OF YOURSELF THAT I DIDN’T ALREADY KNOW ABOUT YOU. HOW DOES IT FEEL TO EXPOSE YOURSELF THAT WAY IN PRINT? I tend to write from the heart, which can be quite revealing—even to myself.And what I’ve found is that when I reveal my heart to others, they often reveal theirs to me.
WHAT DO YOU HAVE PLANNED FOR THE FUTURE? WILL THERE BE MORE BOOKS IN THE SERIES? WILL THERE BE OTHER SERIES? We have several books planned, including additions to the series. And the anthologies in the series will provide the framework for a unique national symposium in September of this year, on issues affecting the incarcerated, the formerly incarcerated and their loved ones. The symposium—to be held at the historic Riverside Church in New York City—will bring together hundreds of people who live in the long shadow of prison and allow them to raise their voices and speak their truths in the same hallowed space where the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. raised his voice against the Vietnam War, where Nelson Mandela raised his voice as a symbol of resistance, courage and hope, where Angela Davis raised her voice against the prison industrial complex and “slave labor of the 21st Century.” The symposium, a program of the Think Outside the Cell Foundation that I recently founded, is being presented with generous funding from the Ford Foundation and in full partnership with the College and Community Fellowship and the Fortune Society’s David Rothenberg Center for Public Policy. I’ll tell you more about the symposium in the weeks and months ahead.
HOW CAN PEOPLE PURCHASE COPIES? The books can be purchased on our website, or by sending a check or money order to us at this address:
Resilience Multimedia, 511 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 525, New York, NY 10011
The books cost $14.95 each. Purchasers of all three books in the series receive free shipping. Otherwise, shipping costs $3.50 for media mail. NYS residents must add 8.875 percent sales tax. For more information, people should feel free to contact us at resiliencemultimedia@verizon.net, or 877-267-2303, or at the above address.
Building Bridges is published by Prison Action Network as our way of communicating with our members.
If you would like to join us, please send a note.
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