Tag Archives: prison

Gov. Deal celebrates Juneteenth by recommending indentured agricultural labor

Remember 85% of people in the prison system are black,
and Gov. Nathan Deal recommends during the week of Juneteenth celebrations,
according to David Rodock in the VDT today,
Parolees to replace migrants?
Gov. Deal says put probationers in fields



With the recent exodus of undocumented Hispanic migrant workers leaving
Georgia to avoid the consequences of House Bill 87, Gov. Nathan Deal made
a statement on Tuesday suggesting that probationers could potentially fill
the approximately 11,000 open jobs in the state’s agricultural economy.

“Specifically, I asked Department of Corrections Commissioner Brian
Owens and (Department of Agriculture) Commissioner Gary Black to review
the current situation and offer possible options,” said Deal in his
statement. “Commissioner Owens has indicated that there are 100,000
probationers statewide, 8,000 of which are in the Southwest region of
the state and 25 percent of which are unemployed … I believe this
would be a great partial solution to our current status as we continue
to move towards sustainable results with the legal options available.”

The potential move would allow probationers who are unable to find work
to have a source of income, provided they are able to meet employer
standards. Income can then be used to pay probation fines, along with
other state fines that are a requirement of their probation sentence.

This fits right in with Joe Pritchard’s rumored suggestion

to replace animal shelter employees with interns.

Hey, if there’s one thing Georgia is good at, it’s
locking up more people
even while other states realize they can’t afford to do that anymore.

So if probationers don’t want to pick onions, lock ’em up again,
in the new private prison VLCIA wants to build in Lowndes County!
That will benefit private prison executives and investors and not
us in Lowndes County, but hey, that will serve those immigrants right!

-jsq

Treating an “epidemic of mass incarceration” —Physicians in NJEM

Everybody from

Serpico
to

Richard Branson
and even the

U.S. Senate
says the War on Drugs has failed and we should stop locking up so many people.
Now physicians weigh in.

ScienceDaily, 1 June 2011,

U.S. Physicians Call for New Approach to Address National ‘Epidemic of Mass Incarceration’

With 2.3 million people behind bars and an estimated 10 million Americans
cycling in and out of correctional facilities each year, the United States
is in the midst of an “epidemic of mass incarceration,” say researchers
from the Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights, a collaboration
of The Miriam Hospital and Brown University.

In a Perspective article to appear in the June 2 issue of the New England
Journal of Medicine (NEJM), the authors argue that much of this epidemic
is due to inadequate treatment of addiction and mental illness in the
community, which they say can be linked to policy changes over the last
30 years, such as severe punishment for drug users as a result of the
nation’s “War on Drugs.”



“More than half of all inmates have a history of substance use and
dependence or mental illness, yet they are often released to the community
without health insurance or access to appropriate medical care and
treatment,” says Josiah D. Rich, M.D., M.P.H., director of the Center for
Prisoner Health and Human Rights, which is based at The Miriam Hospital.

“Sadly, without these linkages to transitional care in the community,
the majority of these individuals will re-enter the revolving door of
the criminal justice system, which already costs our county $50 billion
annually,” he adds.

What is to be done?

Continue reading →

Prisons bad for education budget

Building a prison is not just

a bad business gamble now that
crime rates are down and state budgets are tight.
It’s bad for other things, too. As the reporter who originally broke

the story about the empty new prison in Grayson County, VA

noted 2 January 2011,
Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a national group that promotes criminal justice reform,
summed it up:



“Corrections over the past 25 years has become an increasingly big
component of state budgets, to the point that it’s competing for funding
with education and other core services,” Mauer said. “And you can’t have
it both ways anymore.”

If we want knowledge-based jobs here, a private prison is not how to get them.
Let’s not build a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia.
Spend those tax dollars on education instead.

-jsq

Sounds like trouble is brewing down I-75. —Jim Galloway

What’s even more secretive than the

Industrial Authority?
Valdosta State Prison!

The

AJC has noticed

Sounds like trouble is brewing down I-75. —Jim Galloway

that the VDT

is getting serious about open records requests:

The Valdosta Daily Times’ Open Records request concerning violent incidents in the Valdosta State Prison was denied Monday.

The Department of Corrections (DOC) denied all requests in the Times’
Open Records filing, stating that, under Georgia law, the documents do
not have to be released.

After receiving phone calls from concerned individuals who have knowledge
of recent violent prison attacks, the Times submitted the Open Records
request to Department of Corrections Commissioner Brian Owens.

Kay Harris wrote that in the VDT today.



Curiously,

the state doesn’t even
provide a picture of the prison.

It’s enough to make you wonder what they have to hide.

Apparently the VDT wonders:

Continue reading →

Former Bureau of Prisons chief quit after DUI

At 55, why would Harley G. Lappin

retire from his former cushy job
as Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons?
It might have something to do with being charged with a crime.

According to

Ryan J. Reilly at TMPMuckracker 30 March 2011,



Lappin was pulled over less than a half mile from his house at 3:59
a.m. on Feb. 26, the website reported. He’s been charged with driving
while under the influence, reckless driving, negligent driving and
failure to obey the instructions of a traffic-control device, according
to the news website. A spokeswoman said that Lappin informed his staff
of the arrest.

Lappin will be due in court on June 16, a little over a month after his
resignation becomes effective on May 7.

Well, that will be interesting, to see if

the new private prison czar
gets off or ends up a felon.

CCA is the company that wants to build a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia.
Spend that tax money on education, instead.

-jsq

New CCA CCO is former Director of Federal Bureau of Prisons

The largest private prison company in the U.S. has hired the former

director of the world’s largest prison system,
according to

CCA’s own press release of 1 June 2011:



NASHVILLE, TN–(Marketwire – Jun 1, 2011) – CCA (Corrections Corporation
of America) (NYSE: CXW), America’s leader in partnership corrections,
announced that effective June 1, 2011, Harley G. Lappin, 55, shall serve
as Executive Vice President and Chief Corrections Officer (CCO). In
this role, Mr. Lappin will be responsible for the oversight of facility
operations, health services, inmate rehabilitation programs, purchasing
and TransCor, the Company’s wholly-owned transportation subsidiary. He
succeeds Richard P. Seiter, who announced his decision to step down as
CCO earlier this year, effective May 31, 2011.

Mr. Lappin, as a career correctional administrator, previously served
as the Director, Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) — the nation’s
largest correctional system, a position he held since 2003, prior
to retirement in May 2011. He served in a variety of roles with the
Bureau of Prisons for more than 25 years, beginning in 1985, including
Regional Director, Warden of the United States Penitentiary in Indiana,
and Warden of the Federal Correctional Institution in North Carolina,
among other positions. As Director of the BOP, Lappin had oversight and
management responsibility for 116 federal prisons, 14 large, private
contract facilities and more than 250 contracts for community correction
facilities, in total comprising more than 215,000 inmates managed by
38,000 employees, with a $6.4 billion budget.

How’s that for a revolving door?

CCA is the company that wants to build a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia.
Spend that tax money on education, instead.

-jsq

“We really need it in the county really bad.” —Grayson County, VA

Is Lowndes County in such bad shape that we, too, want a private prison,
no matter that there’s no business case for it?
Or should we learn from one bad business bet and not double down on another?

Susan Kinzie wrote in the Washington Post 30 May 2011,

New Virginia prison sits empty, at a cost of more than $700,000 a year

This is how bad the economy is in southwestern Virginia: People are
wishing they had more criminals in town.



That’s because Grayson County has a brand-new state prison standing
empty. No prisoners. And that means no guards, no administrators, no
staff, no jobs.

“I wish they would go ahead and open it up,” said Rhonda James of
Mouth of Wilson, echoing many residents there. “We really need it in
the county really bad.”

Three hundred new jobs — maybe 350 — that’s what people were told
when the prison was planned. With about 11 percent unemployment and no
relief in sight, that sounded really good to an awful lot of people here.

But months after the commonwealth finished building the 1,024-bed
medium-security prison for $105 million, it remains empty, coils of razor
wire and red roofs shining in the sun, new parking lot all but deserted
and a yawning warehouse waiting for supplies.

And it’s costing more than $700,000 a year to maintain.

Meanwhile, the story continued, Virginia has closed 10 prisons
due to budget shortfalls and lack of prisoners.
And it’s not just Virginia:

Continue reading →

Private Prisons don’t save much money —NYTimes

Richard A. Oppel Jr. wrote
on the front page of the New York Times, 19 May 2011,

Private Prisons Found to Offer Little in Savings



The conviction that private prisons save money helped drive more than
30 states to turn to them for housing inmates. But Arizona shows that
popular wisdom might be wrong: Data there suggest that privately operated
prisons can cost more to operate than state-run prisons — even though
they often steer clear of the sickest, costliest inmates.

That’s right, they leave we the taxpayers to pay more in public prisons
to house the most expensive prisoners:

The research, by the Arizona Department of Corrections, also reveals a
murky aspect of private prisons that helps them appear less expensive:
They often house only relatively healthy inmates.

“It’s cherry-picking,” said State Representative Chad Campbell,
leader of the House Democrats. “They leave the most expensive prisoners
with taxpayers and take the easy prisoners.”

And yet private prisons still cost more.

Could it have something to do with their executive salaries?

Anyway, we don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County.
Spend that tax money on education instead.

-jsq

Find better way to fight crime —Rev. Chuck Arnold

Another Sunday, another preacher against private prisons.
Unlike some,
this one is not famous; Rev. Chuck Arnold is
pastor of Valley of the Flowers United Church of Christ in Vandenberg Village, CA.
He wrote in

the Lompoc Record 20 May 2011



Going to a RAND Corporation study, in 1994 higher education received
12 percent of the state budget, corrections 9 percent, other services 9
percent (which included controlling environmental pollution, management
of parks, fighting of brush fires, regulating insurance and other
industries). By 2002 higher education took the biggest hit, along with
“ other services,” both of which were virtually eliminated from the
state budget. Corrections on the other hand went from 9 percent to 18
percent of the budget.

Which means that California, like so many other states, including Georgia,
spends more on prisons than on education.

And not just public prisons anymore:

Continue reading →

Drug war fail: devastating consequences —Global Commission on Drug Policy

Stop locking up drug users who harm no others,
legalize drugs starting with marijuana,
switch to health and treatment,
stop harrassing farmers,
abandon zero tolerance and invest instead in youth activities,
focus on reducing harm,
and do it now, so says a commission of business moguls, former heads of state,
financial professionals, writers, and activists.

Writes Douglas Stanglin today in USA TODAY,



“The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for
individuals and societies around the world,” says the Report of the
Global Commission on Drug Policy in its opening statement. “Fifty years
after the initiation of the U.N. Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs,
and 40 years after President Nixon launched the U.S. government’s war on
drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies
are urgently needed.”

According to whom?

The 19-member commission, a private venture chaired by ex-Brazilian
president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, includes George Schultz, President
Reagan’s Secretary of State; Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin
Group; former U.N. Secretary General Koffi Anna; George Papandreou,
prime minister of Greece; Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal
Reserve, and Javier Solana,former EU foreign minister.

Here’s their full report.

What do they recommend?

Continue reading →