Category Archives: VLCIA

Sentence reform in Georgia?

AP wrote 22 April 2011, Deal signs measure creating sentence reform panel:
Gov. Nathan Deal signed legislation Friday [House Bill 265] that would create a panel to study Georgia’s criminal justice system with an eye toward overhauling the state’s tough sentencing laws.

The laws have left the state with overcrowded prisons and taxpayers with an annual corrections bill that tops $1 million.

The legislation creates a 13-member commission that would study sentencing reforms in hopes of offering alternative sentences for some drug addicts and other nonviolent offenders. The panel would have to report its findings by early 2012, in time for lawmakers to act on them in the next legislative session.

That annual bill has to be more than $1 million; maybe $1 billion.

Anyway, Georgia seems to be discovering what Texas already did some years ago: we can’t afford to lock up so many people.

The high incarceration rate comes with high costs. Georgia pays $3,800 each year to educate a child in public schools, and $18,000 every year to keep each inmate behind bars, Deal said.

What will we do with them instead?

Hall County is one of several counties that have adopted drug courts, which aim to provide alternative sentences for low-level drug offenders. At the ceremony, drug court graduation Mike Wilcoxson said the program changed his life.

“One thing drug court has done for me is give me a sense of purpose in my life, to set goals for myself, to be accountable for my actions, and to break the cycle of addiction I had,” Wilcoxson said.

That’s one solution.

And if we’re not going to lock up so many people, why do we need to build a private prison in Lowndes County?

-jsq

To Speak or Not To Speak @ VCC 21 April 2011

Can Council members answer in Citizens to Be Heard, or can’t they? One did; another says she can’t.

In Council Comments at the end of the 21 April 2011 Valdosta City Council meeting, Sonny Vickers talked about bids.

Then Deidra White said she would attend any meeting where she could hear and reply to citizens’ concerns, but she can can’t say anything about Citizens to be Heard because there’s a Council policy.

That’s interesting, considering that in the previous Valdosta City Council meeting, in Citizens to be Heard, Council Sonny Vickers responded to Dr. Mark George saying that he had already told everyone that he was for the biomass plant. Does this mean that Council supporters of the biomass plant can speak Continue reading →

Quality time —Mayor John Fretti

More from the person posting as Mayor John Fretti, this time responding to Dr. Noll’s recent post. -jsq
Update 12:40 AM 23 April 2011: Mayor Fretti confirms that the post was by him. -jsq
Perhaps this is my last post: It is in regards to Michael Noll’s most recent post. I will attempt to cut and paste the section that I would like to respond.
“What I found most disturbing are actually the following things that happened at last night’s meeting:

1) A Mayor in absentia because he is celebrating his birthday and decided not to attend because of a lack of agenda items for the meeting.”

Michael – I hope that I have always been polite and respectful
Continue reading →

FBI investigating CCA “Gladiator School”

Rebecca Boone wrote for AP, 30 November 2010 that Video release prompts FBI prison investigation: Critics claim the privately run Idaho Correctional Center uses inmate-on-inmate violence

Jessie L. Bonner / AP file


Former inmate Hanni Elabed is shown during a July 26 interview in Boise, Idaho. Elabed suffered brain damage and persistent short-term memory loss after he was beaten by another inmate while multiple guards watched at the Idaho prison operated by Corrections Corporation of America.

The surveillance video from the overhead cameras shows Hanni Elabed being beaten by a fellow inmate in an Idaho prison, managing to bang on a prison guard station window, pleading for help. Behind the glass, correctional officers look on, but no one intervenes when Elabed is knocked unconscious.

No one steps into the cellblock when the attacker sits down to rest, and no one stops him when he resumes the beating.

Videos of the attack obtained by The Associated Press show officers watching the beating for several minutes. The footage is a key piece of evidence for critics who claim the privately run Idaho Correctional Center uses inmate-on-inmate violence to force prisoners to snitch on their cellmates or risk being moved to extremely violent units.

On Tuesday, hours after the AP published the video, the top federal prosecutor in Idaho told the AP that the FBI has been investigating whether guards violated the civil rights of inmates at the prison, which is run by the Corrections Corporation of America.

What is the inmates’ nickname for this CCA-run prison? Gladiator school.

There is a lot more in the article.

-jsq

Public criticism —Leigh Touchton

Leigh Touchton posted a comment with a report from last night’s Valdosta City Council meeting:
I won’t stay to the end in the future because if they are going to make public attacks on citizens and then go into Executive session so they don’t have to hear a rebuttal, then I don’t care to listen to their bombast. Yost apparently thinks your public criticism of the activists not staying (and also the Tea Party left right after one of their members read from the Bible about how laws and regulation are a sin–I had difficulty keeping from laughing out loud—we’re in a recession because laws and regulation were thrown away and banks made a video called Banks Gone Wild…but I digress)…apparently Yost thinks your criticism of people not staying is something he can use to good effect to nullify the need to publicly address citizen complaints. Here’s his position, distilled:
“You won’t stay to the end, I’m offended. You called our important work boring, I’m offended. (much redness of face, some veins popping out) You come in here and talk to us like that then I’m not going to address your complaints, I’m offended.”
Well I’m offended that a grown man elected to represent Valdosta acts like that.

Let me go back and educate the gentle readers out there who haven’t

Continue reading →

What will you do? —John S. Quarterman @ VCC 7 April 2011

I wanted to know what the council and the protesters will do when the biomass plant is canceled. I still want to know: what will you do?

Here’s the video, followed by my points.


What will you do? —John S. Quarterman @ VCC 7 April 2011
Regular monthly meeting of the Valdosta City Council (VCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 7 April 2011,
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Before I started, the mayor noted that many people needed to go to an event at 7PM (he didn’t name it, but it was the 100 Black Men Annual Dinner.) He offered to proceed with scheduled business and re-open Citizens to be Heard at the end of the meeting. Nobody objected. I had already waited until nobody else seemed to want to speak.

My points: Continue reading →

Biomass is a bad idea —Matt Flumerfelt @ VLCIA 19 April 2011

Matt Flumerfelt says he’s a musician, writer, and poet, and doesn’t usually go in for speaking about politics. But he’s come to the conclusion that the biomass plant is a bad idea.

Here’s the video:


Biomass is a bad idea —Matt Flumerfelt @ VLCIA 19 April 2011
Regular monthly meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority, VLCIA,
Norman Bennett, Roy Copeland, Tom Call, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett chairman,
J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Allan Ricketts Acting Executive Director, 19 April 2011,
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman and John S. Quarterman
for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Think of our future —Jocelyn Holmes @ VCC 7 April 2011

Please help us identify this speaker.
Update 4:10 PM 21 Apr 2011: Bobbi Anne Hancock has the answer: “Jocelyn Holmes. VSU student and active member of S.A.V.E.!”

Here’s the video:


Think of our future @ VCC 7 April 2011
Regular monthly meeting of the Valdosta City Council (VCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 7 April 2011,
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Wiregrass Solar is connected to the grid —Col. Ricketts @ VLCIA 19 April 2011

Acting Executive Director Allan Ricketts reported to the VLCIA board that the Wiregrass Solar plant is connected to the grid now. He gave a bit of detail about the commissioning ceremony that was cancelled due to weather; apparently dignitaries from across the state were expected to attend. No new date has been set. He’s still supposed to let me know when the new date is set.

Here’s the video:


Wiregrass Solar is connected to the grid —Col. Ricketts @ VLCIA 19 April 2011
Biomass protesters,
Regular monthly meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority, VLCIA,
Norman Bennett, Roy Copeland, Tom Call, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett chairman,
J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Allan Ricketts Acting Executive Director, 19 April 2011,
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman and John S. Quarterman
for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Local NAACP votes to oppose private prison in Lowndes County

Leigh Touchton commented yesterday about a meeting Tuesday 19 April. She is president of the Valdosta-Lowndes NAACP. -jsq
Valdosta NAACP branch voted last night to oppose the private prison approved by VLCIA. We don’t need more prisons, and they do not improve economic standards in any community in which they have been located. There is a safety burden upon the community, there are human rights abuses, and the focus should be on saving the state money by rehabilitation of non-violent offenders rather than mass incarceration. When America has 5% of the world’s population but incarcerates 25% of the world’s prisoners, this is unacceptable. In North Carolina, private prisons have put local furniture manufacturers out of business because they cannot compete with the prison’s slave labor. These are not sustainable and it’s no mystery why most of the large Christian denominations in America oppose them.

-Leigh Touchton

Here’s Brad Lofton’s explanation of the private prison. Here are statements on private prisons by three Christian denominations. And the state of Israel has outlawed private prisons. More information about CCA and private prisons here.

-jsq