Five myths about Americans in prison

No country on Earth imprisons more people per capita than the United States. But for America, mass incarceration has proved a losing proposition. The Supreme Court recently found California’s overcrowded prisons unconstitutional, and state legislators want to cut the vast amounts of public money spent on prison warehousing.

Why are so many Americans in prison, and which ones can be safely released? Let’s address some common misunderstandings about our incarceration problem.

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If at first you don't succeed... try try again

Here are the salient facts. Mr. Romell Broom was convicted of rape and murder and sentenced to death in 1984. On Tuesday night the state of Ohio spent two hours trying kill Mr. Broom, and they failed. Mr. Broom was escorted into the execution chamber and strapped onto a gurney. After which, the next two hours were spent poking him with needles in an unsuccessful effort to find a suitable vein through which to administer an injection of lethal drugs. All the while Mr. Broom remained strapped to the gurney in some discomfort expecting to be killed. After the two hours of failed needle sticking the state of Ohio gave up for the night.

The plan to try to kill Mr. Broom again next week.

This is not the first time Ohio (or other states) have had difficulty killing someone by lethal injection. It is however the first time that the state actually gave up and plans to try again later on. It is also believed to be only the second time in modern American history where there will be a "do-over" execution. The only previous case being in 1946 when Willie Francis (aged 16 and African American) was strapped into the Louisiana electric chair for killing a pharmacist who had sexually molested him. The electric chair malfunctioned and delivered a severe but non-lethal shock. The boy could be heard screaming from under the leather hood in agony and yelling that he could not breathe. Eventually they too gave up. The chair was repaired and plans were quickly made to try again. However a lawyer took the case (pro-bono) and appealed, claiming that attempting to execute someone twice was cruel and unusual punishment. The United States Supreme Court disagreed in a 5-4 decision and the boy was again strapped into the chair in May of 1947. This time it worked.

I am sorry. But this is the United States of America, not medieval Spain. If you are going to have capital punishment it needs to be done right. You don't get to spend two hours trying to kill someone and then call it a night while planning to try again later. The Governor should have called a halt to this grotesque spectacle within the first 20 minutes at the latest. In Great Britain back before they abolished the death penalty, an execution was considered a failure if the condemned man spent more then 30 seconds on the trap door of the gallows before being hanged.

This is nothing less than barbarism.

California's Prison Crisis: Be Very Afraid

The exact cause of the 11-hour riot that broke out Aug. 8 at the California Institution for Men in Chino, Calif., won't be known until an official investigation by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is completed. However, to some criminal-justice experts the violence that erupted at the facility, located about 40 miles east of Los Angeles, was an inevitable consequence of a state prison system long hobbled by massive overcrowding, program cuts and understaffed facilities. And given the state's ongoing budget woes — with $1.2 billion in cuts mandated to the prison budget — the situation is likely to only get worse.

"The overcrowding is the first issue," says Barry Krisberg, president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency in Oakland, Calif. "You're talking about hundreds of men moved into triple bunks in what used to be gyms and cafeterias. They're not even cells. They're just empty places where we're shoving people." According to the most recent statistics from the CDCR, California's 33 state prisons house 154,649 prisoners in facilities designed to hold just 84,271 prisoners. The Chino prison is among the worst, with 5,877 prisoners in a facility designed to hold 2,976. (Read about the problem with cell phones in prisons.)

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and state political officials have been well aware of the issue of overcrowding, and the deplorable conditions that go along with it, for some time. In 2006 Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency because of "severe overcrowding" in California's prisons, saying it had caused "substantial risk to the health and safety of the men and women who work inside these prisons and the inmates housed in them." In response, legislators passed AB 900, which earmarked $1.2 billion in jail-construction funding through state lease-revenue bonds. However, more than two years later, construction is still on hold as lawmakers quibble about the details. But it's not just a lack of buildings that is the problem. Says Krisberg: "Without programs and without services, the tensions that exist to begin with are going to be greatly exacerbated. The elected officials of California have been playing Russian roulette with the lives of the guards and the inmates in these prisons." (Read about California's growing prison crisis.)

"You can't build yourself out of this mess," says Jeanne Woodford, former warden at San Quentin and former head of the CDCR. "The state can't afford it." Apparently, California only accounted for the construction costs and never included the operating expenses. "So even if those places are built," says Woodford, "where will California get the money to staff them? We're broke. How the heck are we going to operate these prisons? Most prisons cost from $150 to $200 million a year to operate. There's just no money for it."

In addition to overcrowding, the state's corrections efforts are the nation's most expensive — and one of the least effective. The state spends $10 billion annually, or $49,000 per inmate for a year in custody, according to statistics from the nonpartisan policy-advising group Legislative Analyst's Office. Yet, California's recidivism rate is 70%, one of the worst in the country.

Given the state's lack of traction on prison reform, a federal three-judge panel recently ordered California to come up with a plan in the next 45 days that reduces the inmate population by nearly 43,000 prisoners. Seth Unger, press secretary for the CDCR, says they will appeal any final ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. "Congress passed the Prison Litigation Reform Act to limit the power of the federal courts to take control of state prison systems and to order population caps or early release of inmates and we certainly believe the court has overstepped its bounds in this case," says Unger.

He says his department recently introduced a proposal, yet to be deliberated on by legislators, that would reduce the average daily prison population by 27,300. Of course, politicians, particularly state Republicans, are loath to endorse any measure that smacks of releasing prisoners early or that could be viewed as being soft on crime — which has been a roadblock to reforming the system in the past. Prison-reform advocates are hoping the ruling by the federal court will inspire political will for their cause.

Even if California avoids federal intervention and the CDCR's current proposal is adopted, mandated state budget cuts will force the department to cut half of the already depleted programs for rehabilitation, substance abuse and vocational training. That would spell disaster, according to Woodford. "We release 10,000 [prisoners] a month now and in that 10,000 very few have been involved in anything to improve who they are as human beings. That should scare us. And in that 10,000 are some very violent people that left a lockup unit like Pelican Bay [to go] right back to the streets — that should scare us. What should scare us is our broken policy and not the fact that 40,000 more are going to come out because we should be scared already."

Source

What Price Justice?

MIAMI — Public defenders’ offices in at least seven states are refusing to take on new cases or have sued to limit them, citing overwhelming workloads that they say undermine the constitutional right to counsel for the poor.

Public defenders are notoriously overworked, and their turnover is high and their pay low. But now, in the most open revolt by public defenders in memory, the government appointed lawyers say budget cuts and rising caseloads have pushed them to the breaking point.

In September, a Florida judge ruled that the public defenders’ office in Miami-Dade County could refuse to represent many of those arrested on lesser felony charges so its lawyers could provide a better defense for other clients. Over the last three years, the average number of felony cases handled by each lawyer in a year has climbed to close to 500, from 367, officials said, and caseloads for lawyers assigned to misdemeanor cases has risen to 2,225, from 1,380.

“Right now a lot of public defenders are starting to stand up and say, ‘No more. We can’t ethically handle this many cases,’ ” said David Carroll, director of research for the National Legal Aid and Defender Association.

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