Category Archives: Prison

Washington State Prison System Sued for Using Unreliable Drug Tests On Prison Mail

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Ventura County jail mailroom workers keep drugs and other items at bay

The WA Department of Corrections (DOC) is facing a lawsuit over its use of inaccurate drug field tests to throw incarcerated people in solitary confinement.

The class-action lawsuit, filed by Columbia Legal Services alleges that the DOC uses unreliable field kits to test mail for drugs. From there, the DOC uses the unverified results to put inmates in solitary confinement, move them to higher security prisons, and strip them of visitation rights and other privileges. This violates inmates’ Due Process rights and protections against cruel punishment under the state constitution, the suit argues.

According to the lawsuit, one of the plaintiffs spent four months in solitary confinement after greeting cards shipped directly to him from a card company tested positive for drugs. The results were later invalidated by a lab. Another plaintiff, Gregory Hyde, was kept in solitary confinement—meaning he was in a cell for 23 hours a day—for nearly five months. This happened because some books of crossword and sudoku puzzles that his father mailed him tested positive for “spice,” a popular drug in prisons.

“I think DOC is using its power to punish people who can’t fight back . . . My elderly father just wanted to send me some puzzle books. Now they’re saying he’s a drug dealer. Now my father is too far away to see because I got transferred to a different facility. My father is impoverished and on a fixed income. I think it’s an abuse of power.” ~Gregory Hyde, DOC inmate, in a press release.

The lawsuit comes roughly two years after a Massachusetts judge ordered that state prison system to stop using similar field tests, finding that they were “highly unreliable” and “only marginally better than a coin-flip.” That suit followed claims by over a dozen Massachusetts attorneys who said they were falsely accused of sending drugs to their incarcerated clients.

Reason reported in 2021 on how these cheap field tests, which use instant color reactions to indicate the presence of compounds found in certain drugs, are used extensively in prison systems across the country to punish inmates, despite clear warnings from the manufacturers that the results should be confirmed by outside labs.

The problem is that the compounds these kits test for are not exclusive to illicit drugs and are in fact found in dozens of legal substances. Police also use these tests during traffic stops, and over the years, officers have arrested and jailed innocent people after drug field kits returned presumptive positive results when tested on bird poop, donut glaze, cotton candy, and sand from inside a stress ball. A 2017 investigation by a Georgia news station found that one brand of test kit produced 145 false positives in the state in one year.

In criminal cases, the results of drug field tests are always verified by an outside lab. However, incarcerated people have far fewer rights in administrative disciplinary hearings, and they don’t have the right to demand that “presumptive positive” tests be sent out for confirmation.

The lawsuit says the DOC agreed to change its policies after receiving Columbia Legal Service’s threat of litigation. However, Columbia Legal Services says the changes weren’t adequate to protect incarcerated people’s rights.

“DOC’s repeated and prolonged use of solitary confinement before and after any infraction hearings is inhumane . . . Prolonged solitary confinement is internationally recognized as a form of torture. DOC must be required to stop its use of these cheap tests to unfairly punish people, especially with its barbaric use of solitary confinement.” ~Alison Bilow, an attorney for Columbia Legal Services

Clearly, prison is a terrible outcome to be avoided at all costs. Please contact my office if you, a friend or family member are charged with a crime. Hiring an effective and competent defense attorney is the first and best step toward justice.

Let’s Not Forget – There’s Actually Less Crime

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What the public thinks – and data shows – about violent crime in U.S. | Pew Research Center

Excellent article in USA Today from Adam Gelb, the President and CEO of the Council on Criminal Justice. According to crime and justice trends, there is positive news in the realm of crime and punishment.

VIOLENT CRIME

Even after three years of increases, the rate of reported violent crime in America is half what it was at its peak in 1991, while burglaries and other property crimes are 63% lower than its peak in 1980. And the most recent data shows murder and other trend lines bending back down.

ARRESTS & INCARCERATIONS

In the mid-1990s, police arrested more than 15 million people a year. By 2019, arrests had dropped by a third, to about 10 million, and they fell even further during the pandemic. The U.S. incarceration rate remains among the highest in the world, but it, too, has declined, falling from its peak of more than 1 in every 100 adults in 2008 to 1 in 147 in 2021, a decline of a third. That translates to about a half million fewer people behind bars on any given day.

RECIDIVISM

Recidivism is the rate at which people on parole are sent back to prison for committing new crimes or violating the rules of their release. According to Gelb, that has dropped as well. The three-year prison return rate – the most commonly used measure – fell from 50% among people released from state prisons in 2005 to 39% among those released in 2012. And in juvenile justice, the number of youth removed from their homes for delinquency has plummeted by two-thirds, from more than 100,000 in 2000 to fewer than 37,000 in 2019.

RACIAL DISPARITIES

While troubling racial disparities in imprisonment persist, we’ve also seen some progress here. From 2000 to 2020, the disparity between Black and white adults in state prisons fell by 40%, from 8-to-1 to 5-to-1, and for drug offenses, it shrank by 75%. Black women remain nearly twice as likely to be held in prison as white women. However, they were over five times more likely at the turn of the century.

Taken together, the overall “footprint” of the justice system has shrunk substantially. In 2008, The Pew Charitable Trusts found that a whopping 1 out of every 31 American adults was in prison or jail or on probation or parole. According to new data from the Justice Department, that rate of correctional control had dropped to 1 in 48 by the end of 2021, a decline of a third.

Crime remains a serious and urgent concern. During the early days of the pandemic, as protests against police killings spread and gun sales spiked, homicide and other violent crimes rose. But as troubling as these recent increases are, it’s important to recognize that they occurred in the wake of significant improvements in safety.

STUDY THE GOOD NEWS AS WELL AS THE BAD ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE.

Gelb emphasizes that despite positive gains, the shrinking criminal justice footprint is rarely acknowledged or discussed. This leaves everyday Americans to conclude that nothing is improving.

“That’s understandable, but we ignore progress at our peril,” writes Gelb. Furthermore, pessimism leads to defeatist attitudes and clouds sober analysis of what is and isn’t working. It chases away elected officials, candidates and philanthropists who don’t want to hitch their wagons to perpetually losing causes. It burns out talented leaders and staff. And it feeds a cycle of cynicism that sows deeper and deeper distrust of the criminal justice system, of American institutions and of democracy itself.

“It’s crucial to face our ugly history. Justice demands that we identify and fix our problems. But to accelerate America’s march toward a safer and more just society, we also must recognize, examine and learn from what’s gone right.” ~Adam Gelb, the President and CEO of the Council on Criminal Justice. 

Please contact my office if you, a friend or family member are charged with a crime. Hiring an effective and competent defense attorney is the first and best step toward justice.

Public Safety Beyond Extreme Sentencing

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Long prison sentences are cruel and ineffective: here's the proof - The Boston Globe

A policy brief from the Sentencing Project explores five social interventions that can improve public safety in the United States without increasing the reliance on mass incarceration.

According to the report, America’s criminal legal system has produced excessive levels of punishment and a diversion of resources from investments that would strengthen the capacity of communities to address the circumstances that contribute to crime.

After 50 years of mass incarceration, the United States faces a reckoning. While crime is far below its peak in the early 1990s, the country continues to struggle with an unacceptable amount of gun violence. Meanwhile, the drug war harms too many Americans and has failed to prevent fatal overdoses from reaching an all-time high.

The report offers five recommendations for policymakers and community members to potentially improve safety without deepening our reliance on extreme sentencing:

  • Implement community safety solutions – Community-based interventions such as violence interruption programs and changes to the built environment are a promising approach to decreasing violence without incarceration.
  • Transform crisis response – Shifting responses to people in crisis away from police toward trained community-based responders has the potential to reduce police shootings, improve safety, and decrease incarceration.
  • Reduce unnecessary justice involvement – Ending unnecessary police contact and court involvement by decriminalizing and diverting many offenses can improve safety.
  • End the drug war – Shifting away from criminalizing people who use drugs toward public health solutions can improve public health and safety.
  • Strengthen opportunities for youth – Interventions like summer employment opportunities and training youth in effective decision-making skills are a promising means of reducing criminal legal involvement.

“A growing evidence-base for all of these interventions demonstrates that policymakers can think beyond police and incarceration to create safety in their communities and should invest in bringing innovative alternatives to scale.” ~The Sentencing Project

Research demonstrates that many social interventions have the potential to be more cost-effective and equitable than criminal legal responses. The highlighted interventions below in violence prevention, crisis response, early childhood education, harm reduction, and therapeutic support for youth are ways to reduce unnecessary contact with the criminal legal system while protecting public safety.

The report emphasizes our opportunity to expand on programs that improve safety while scaling back incarceration.

“By combining social interventions that address some of the root causes of crime and legislative reforms that reduce the harm of the criminal legal system, policymakers can create safer, fairer, and more equitable communities.” ~The Sentencing Project

Excellent research by authors Liz Komar and Nicole D. Porter.

Please contact my office if you, a friend or family member are charged with a crime. Prison should be avoided whenever possible. Hiring an effective and competent defense attorney is the first and best step toward justice.

Federal Prisons Want Inmates to Pay Victims

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5 companies compete to build new Alabama prisons

Excellent article by Tilda Wilson reports that federal prisons want inmates to pay victims before making phone calls or buying shoes.

The Bureau of Prisons is considering a rule change concerning inmates who keep large sums of money in their prison accounts. The new rule would require that 75 percent of all the money family and friends send a person in prison go to pay their outstanding debts. These debts include paying restitution to their victims.

But lawyers and advocates for people in prison feel that the proposed rule goes too far. Shanna Rifkin, deputy general counsel for Families Against Mandatory Minimums, agrees that the Bureau of Prisons should not let wealthy inmates avoid restitution. However, she also thinks the proposed rule is too broad.

“It’s really like a sledgehammer, when you could bring a tool that was much smaller to address the problem.” ~Shanna Rifkin, Deputy General Counsel for Families Against Mandatory Minimums

Other advocates, like Ellen Degnan, a staff attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center, argue the courts should fix the problem themselves by setting individual payment plans during sentencing.

“Courts can solve this problem. This is not for the BOP to meddle in.” ~Ellen Degnan, a staff attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center

Even advocates for people who are owed restitution are wary of the proposed rule. Bridgette Stumpf, executive director at the nonprofit Network for Victim Recovery of D.C., thinks the rule has the potential to get some victims restitution more quickly than they would otherwise. Still, she thinks the consequences need to be balanced.

RESTITUTION OR COURT FINES?

Many of the people who would be impacted by the proposed rule do not owe victim restitution. Instead, they owe court fines and fees related to their initial sentencing.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons said that commissary accounts are a privilege. Officials will review public comments carefully. There is no deadline for a decision on this rule being made.

Jails and prisons are undesirable places. Please review Making Bail and contact my office if you, a friend or family member are charged with a crime. Hiring an effective and competent defense attorney is the first and best step toward justice.

Over 29,100 Years ‘Lost’ In Prison Due To Wrongful Convictions

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Government corruption and negligence drive most wrongful convictions, report finds

Excellent article by Kiara Alfonseca of abcnews.go.com uncovered disturbing data on wrongful convictions. An exoneration-tracking project called National Registry of Exonerations (NRE) found that more than 29,100 years have been “lost” in prison due to wrongful convictions. The wrongful convictions were based on misidentifications, false confessions, police failure to disclose evidence and more.

The NRE has actively recorded this trend data since 1989. Since then, 3,287 exonerations have been recorded. The project is hosted by University of California Irvine, University of Michigan Law School and Michigan State University College of Law.

“We’ve all been raised to believe that our system is a great system that works well, that we identify the right people, we convict the right people, we give people the right sentences . . . It has been a very hard awakening for a lot of people to realize that that’s just not always the case.” ~Attorney Marissa Boyers Bluestine, Assistant Director at the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice.

The registry found that the most often cited factors for wrongful convictions are as follows:

  • Witness Misidentification
  • False Accusation
  • False Confession
  • Faulty Forensic Evidence
  • Inadequate Legal Defense
  • Police Misconduct
  • Prosecutorial Misconduct

In some cases, the methods used to collect evidence in the past have since been proven to be scientifically unreliable, according to experts. This was the case with Sidney Holmes, whose armed robbery conviction was recently overturned in part because of misidentification, which was partly due to outdated photo and live lineup practices commonly used by law enforcement in the 1980s, officials say.

Black people represent 53% of the 3,200 exonerations listed in the National Registry of Exonerations. This data exists despite the fact that black people make up just 13.6% of the American population. Nevertheless, black people represent 38% of the incarcerated population, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.

“Innocent Black Americans are seven times more likely than white Americans to be falsely convicted of serious crimes.” ~National Registry of Exonerations 2022 Report.

Please contact my office if you, a friend or family member are charged with a crime. Being wrongfully convicted is the worst outcome possible. Hiring an effective and competent defense attorney is the first and best step toward justice.

Should Prison Inmates Get Minimum Wage for Prison Jobs?

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Sell Block: The empty promises of prison labor

Excellent article by Journalist Drew Mikkelsen reports that WA State Representative Tarra Simmons wants to start paying inmates minimum wage for prison jobs.

According to the Department of Corrections (DOC), 1,600 offenders currently work in-custody jobs. They pay between 65 cents to $2.70 per hour. Inmates are paid to work in prison kitchens, they build office furniture and assemble eyeglasses.

DOC spokesperson Chris Wright said those are “one of the top hourly rates in the country.”

“This is an evolution of slavery,” said state Representative Tarra Simmons, D-Bremerton. Simmons is believed to be the first person convicted of a felony to get elected to serve in Olympia. She served a 30-month prison sentence for drug and theft charges. She worked in the kitchen, laundry room, and as a custodian. “When I was incarcerated I was paid 42 cents an hour,” said Simmons. Her proposal would place half of an inmate’s earnings into an account that could not be accessed until the inmate’s release.

“If people can leave with enough money to have transportation, for housing, clothing, food and potentially some job training, hopefully they will have a better chance at not coming back,” ~Tarra Simmons, D-Bremerton

Simmons said the issue will come up for debate in the upcoming legislative session, which starts in January.

Mrs. Simmons is quite remarkable. She’s a politician, convicted felon, lawyer, and civil rights activist for criminal justice reform. In 2011 Simmons was sentenced to 30 months in prison for theft and drug crimes. In 2017, she graduated from Seattle University School of Law with honors. After law school, she was not allowed to sit for the Washington State bar exam due to her status as a former convicted felon.

Consequently, she challenged the Washington State Bar Association rules in the Washington State Supreme Court and won with the court unanimously ruling in her favor. She was later sworn in as an attorney in the State of Washington on June 16, 2018. Simmons is the executive director for a nonprofit focused on assisting those that are formerly incarcerated, known as the Civil Survival Project

Republican Sen. Phil Fortunato, R-Auburn, said the inmates are enough of a tax burden on the state:

“To me, it doesn’t make much sense . . . There’s no end to what we can do with other people’s money.” ~Republican Sen. Phil Fortunato, R-Auburn

Mt opinion? Prison is big business. The state of Washington saves millions by paying inmates pennies per hour for work done behind bars.Billions of dollars in revenue are generated by both the private prison industry and the labor of individuals who are incarcerated. From desks to textiles, a complex web of manufacturing is produced each day in New York Prisons—in fact, every New York license plate is created by an individual with justice involvement. Though their work results in billions of dollars, individuals with justice involvement receive literal pennies in return.

Of course, the best route is to avoid prison altogether. Please contact my office if you, a friend or family member are charged with a crime. Hiring an effective and competent defense attorney is the first and best step toward justice.

Federal Prisoners Punished for Using Their Prescribed Medications

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Delaware inmate's overdose shows how easy it is to get drugs into prison

Intriguing article from journalist Beth Schwartzapfel discusses federal prisons punish prisoners for using addiction medication. The article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, who spoke to more than 20 people struggling with addictions in federal prison. They described the dire consequences of being unable to safely access a treatment that Congress has instructed prisons to provide.

Last year, the Bureau of Prisons disciplined more than 500 people for using Suboxone without a prescription. When prescribed, Suboxone typically comes as a strip of film that patients dissolve under the tongue. On the illegal market behind bars, a strip is cut into 16 or 32 pieces, each of which sells for $20.

Some prisoners have overdosed. Many have gotten involved in dangerous and illicit money-making schemes to pay for Suboxone. The medication costs about $20 for a small fraction of a daily dose on the illegal market, several prisoners said. Many have lost phone or visiting privileges or been sent to solitary confinement because they were caught taking the medication.

“Believe me, 100% I recognize the irony there,” said a bureau administrator familiar with the agency’s addiction treatment programs, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press. “It’s maddening.”

THE “FIRST STEP” ACT

Congress passed the First Step Act four years ago, requiring, among other things, that the Bureau of Prisons offer more prisoners addiction medications, the most common of which is Suboxone. The medications can quiet opioid cravings and reduce the risk of relapse and overdose.

Yet the federal prisons are treating only a fraction — less than 10% — of the roughly 15,000 prisoners who need it, according to the bureau’s estimates.

At the end of October, 21 prisons were not offering any prisoners addiction medication, and another 59 were treating 10 or fewer people — in many cases, just one person, according to bureau data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. The rest of the 121 facilities nationwide were each treating a few dozen people at most.

THE CHALLENGES OF PRESCRIBING MEDICATIONS TO PRISONERS

According to the article, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is treating increasingly more people since it launched its opioid medication program. In 2019, 41 people were receiving addiction medications. As of October, that had risen to 1,035 people; more than 80% of them are receiving Suboxone. This is good progress.

However, the BOP has fought in court to prevent people entering the system from staying on the addiction medications they were prescribed by doctors in the community. That began to change in 2018, when the First Step Act was passed and prisons and jails across the country began losing lawsuits from prisoners who argued it was cruel and unusual to deny them the addiction medicine they’d been taking before they were incarcerated.

Presently, prisoners need to overcome several administrative hurdles before they can begin medication. They must also obtain clearance from psychological services, then health services, before seeing a prescriber. This process naturally involves extended wait times. Some say the issues stem from a culture at the BOP that is skeptical of addiction medication and pits staff against prisoners.

Federal law treats use of any narcotics without a prescription in federal prison — including Suboxone — as a “greatest severity level prohibited act.” This infraction allows officials to punish prisoners by delaying their release date, confiscating their property. It also allows officials to withdraw visiting or phone privileges and hold prisoners for up to six months in solitary confinement. Experts say even a few days in solitary can exacerbate the mental illness that is often the cause of, or closely linked to, drug addiction.

According to the article, the lack of Suboxone treatment comes amid a rise in drug-related deaths behind bars. A variety of substances are routinely smuggled into prisons and jails through mail, drone drops, visitors or corrections officers and other staff. In the last two decades, federal data shows that fatal overdoses increased by more than 600% inside prisons and more than 200% inside jails.

Forty-seven incarcerated people died of overdoses in federal prison from 2019 through 2021, according to internal bureau data released via a public records request. The data does not specify how many of these overdose deaths were caused by opioids and could have been prevented by medications like Suboxone. However, other BOP data offers some clue: During the same period, correctional staff administered Narcan — a drug that reverses opioid overdoses — almost 600 times in federal prisons.

Prison is an awful experience. Serving a prison sentence while needing a prescription medication is even more challenging. Please contact my office if you, a friend or family member are charged with a crime. Hiring an effective and competent defense attorney is the first and best step toward justice.

Locked Out 2022: Estimates of People Denied Voting Rights

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The state of ex-felons' voting rights, explained - Vox

An insightful report from The Sentencing Project describes how an estimated 4.6 million Americans are barred from voting due to a felony conviction.

Laws in 48 states ban people with felony convictions from voting. In 2022, an estimated 4.6 million Americans, representing 2 percent of the voting-age population, will be ineligible to vote due to these laws or policies, many of which date back to the post-Reconstruction era. In this election year, as the United States confronts questions about the stability of its democracy and the fairness of its elections, particularly within marginalized communities, the impact of voting bans on people with felony convictions should be front and center in the debate.

This 2022 report updates and expands upon 20 years of work chronicling the scope and distribution of felony disenfranchisement in the United States (see Uggen, Larson, Shannon, and Pulido-Nava 2020; Uggen, Larson, and Shannon 2016; Uggen, Shannon, and Manza 2012; Manza and Uggen 2006; Uggen and Manza 2002). As in 2020, we present national and state estimates of the number and percentage of people disenfranchised due to felony convictions, as well as the number and percentage of the Black and Latinx populations impacted. Although these and other estimates must be interpreted with caution, the numbers presented here represent our best assessment of the state of felony disenfranchisement as of the November 2022 election.

AMONG THE REPORT’S KEY FINDINGS:

  • An estimated 4.6 million people are disenfranchised due to a felony conviction, a figure that has declined by 24 percent since 2016, as more states enacted policies to curtail this practice and state prison populations declined modestly. Previous research finds there were an estimated 1.2 million people disenfranchised in 1976, 3.3 million in 1996, 4.7 million in 2000, 5.4 million in 2004, 5.9 million in 2010, 6.1 million in 2016, and 5.2 million in 2020.
  • One out of 50 adult citizens – 2 percent of the total U.S. voting eligible population – is disenfranchised due to a current or previous felony conviction.
  • Three out of four people disenfranchised are living in their communities, having fully completed their sentences or remaining supervised while on probation or parole.
  • In three states – Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee – more than 8 percent of the adult population, one of every 13 adults, is disenfranchised.
  • Florida remains the nation’s disenfranchisement leader in absolute numbers, with over 1.1 million people currently banned from voting, often because they cannot afford to pay court-ordered monetary sanctions. An estimated 934,500 Floridians who have completed their sentences remain disenfranchised, despite a 2018 ballot referendum that promised to restore their voting rights.
  • One in 19 African Americans of voting age is disenfranchised, a rate 3.5 times that of non-African Americans. Among the adult African American population, 5.3 percent is disenfranchised compared to 1.5 percent of the adult non-African American population.
  • More than one in 10 African American adults is disenfranchised in eight states – Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Virginia.
  • Although data on ethnicity in correctional populations are unevenly reported and undercounted in some states, a conservative estimate is that at least 506,000 Latinx Americans or 1.7 percent of the voting eligible population are disenfranchised.
  • Approximately 1 million women are disenfranchised, comprising over one-fifth of the total disenfranchised population.

My opinion? Many states restore voting rights to individuals automatically after they exit jail or prison. Others continue the bar on voting even while on probation or parole. A few permanently disenfranchise people with a past conviction or require they petition the government to have their voting right restored. Fortunately, In 2021, Governor Inslee signed legislation restoring voting rights to people convicted of felonies automatically after release from prison.

Losing your right to vote is a terrible consequence of a criminal conviction. Please contact my office if you, a friend or family member are charged with a crime. Hiring an effective and competent defense attorney is the first and best step toward justice.

Indigenous Prisoners in Walla Walla Gather for Pow wow

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Powwow adds color to local prison - Mitchell Republic | News, weather, sports from Mitchell South Dakota

Journalist Karina Brown reports in Undersore News that Native American prisoners at the State Penitentiary hosted their first powwow in three years. This reunites a 50-year tradition temporarily halted by the Covid-19 Pandemic.

“Today is a big day, to be able to see our families,” said Yakama inmate Tallon Saluskin. “And to get to show love.”

Thirty-seven Indigenous inmates and 75 guests attended the first of 22 powwows scheduled for September and October in Washington state prisons. It was the first time the Washington State Department of Corrections (WDOC) allowed an outdoor powwow in a medium-security prison. There was drumming and dancing, plus a feast of salmon, buffalo stew and fry bread. Late in the afternoon, prisoners presented handmade gifts to nearly every attendee.

The lack of powwows, sweat lodges and other Native American religious ceremonies during the pandemic made a difficult time period even harder. That painful stretch of time without religious ceremonies ended sooner for prisoners who participated in other religions. But Native Americans are incarcerated in the United States at higher rates than any other racial category, after African Americans. Though they make up 1.9% of the population of Washington State, nearly 5% of the people jailed in state prisons in Washington are Native American.

Consequently, Covid restrictions in prison were especially detrimental to Indigenous faith practices.

Bringing Pow wows To Prisons Was Hard-Fought.

Restrictions under the pandemic caused an absence of ceremony comparable only to one other period of time at least 50 years ago.

In 2010, the WDOC sharply curtailed the Indigenous faith practices it allowed. At issue were budget cuts and a dispute over whether to allow children to attend powwows. But the religious rights of Indigenous prisoners are protected under the First Amendment, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 and rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court including the 1979 case Bell v. Wolfish, which found that prisoners “do not forfeit all Constitutional protections by reason of their conviction and confinement in prison.”

Ten tribes petitioned the governor for a reversal of the 2010 policies, but it took over two years for the WDOC to restore Native prisoners’ religious rights.

My opinion? This tradition brings healing and strength. And society must recognize that the rehabilitation of inmates would be enhanced if their religious and cultural practices were permitted.

Please contact my office if you, a friend or family member are charged with a crime. Hiring an effective and competent defense attorney is the first and best step toward justice.

Racial Disparities in Sentencing

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Opinion | At Long Last, a Measure of Justice for Some Drug Offenders - The New York Times

The Sentencing Project and the ACLU submitted a shadow report to the United Nations on the impact of racial disparities in sentencing.

The report addresses sentencing and imprisonment. It also discusses racism in the application of the death penalty. Finally, it focuses on issues for youth in the adult and juvenile justice systems.

According to the report, the proportion of people of color who are incarcerated in the nation compared with their representation in the general population epitomizes the need to achieve racial justice.

“The nation incarcerates almost two million people—more than any other country in the world—and over five times more per capita than just 40 years ago,” it says. “But the burden of criminal sentencing and imprisonment is not inflicted equally.” It goes on to say that Black and Latinx residents are incarcerated at rates five and three times higher than white residents, respectively. One of every 81 Black adults in the U.S. is in prison.

“These staggering disparities create individual and community barriers to full and equal participation in American society. Criminal convictions and imprisonment can prevent individuals from voting and gaining employment, undermine access to safe housing, negatively impact the life outcomes of children, and substantially lower lifetime earnings, amongst other social, political and economic disadvantages.” ~Racial Disparities in Sentencing in the United States, July 14, 2022

The report argues that while these are individual consequences, there are also societal consequences: high levels of imprisonment in communities bring about crime, poverty and neighborhood deterioration through decreased political power that fuels greater disparities. This cycle of suffering, social exclusion and disempowerment is primarily experienced by African Americans and other people of color.

The enormous racial disparities, discrimination and inequality created by the United States’ system of mass incarceration did not occur by happenstance. They are the product of deliberate legal and policy choices created by a dominant white population supported by a culture of white supremacy.

The report says, for instance, that the so-called “War on Drugs” which greatly accelerated America’s mass incarceration build-up starting in the 1970’s was initiated as a deliberate effort by President Richard Nixon and his administration to disrupt, vilify and oppress communities of color for political gain and control, rather than a legal initiative primarily concerned about improving public safety.

These racist underpinnings of the criminal legal system in the United States must be acknowledged in order for meaningful reform to be accomplished and human rights to finally be upheld. Despite the centrality of racial disparities in the criminal legal system, and in sentencing and imprisonment in particular, these critical areas of race discrimination and disparate impact receive scant attention in the U.S. government’s combined tenth to twelfth periodic reports submitted to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in 2021.

Kudos to the Sentencing Project and the ACLU for their insightful report. And please contact my office if you, a friend or family member are charged with a crime. Hiring an effective and competent defense attorney is the first and best step toward justice.