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21 December 2009

The Execution of Old Men

via Sociological Images by lisa on 12/19/09

Chris Uggen, fellow sociologist and editor of Contexts magazine, put together a graphic for Public Criminology comparing the current age of death row inmates in the US with their age at arrest (in the title, I assumed they were mostly men, but I don’t know):

So the median age at arrest is 27 and the median current age is 43. This illustrates the lag time between arrest, conviction, sentencing, and execution. It also creates the conditions for what Uggen calls the “graying of prison populations.” We are executing mostly middle-aged men and older, even as the young are disproportionately convicted for committing violent crimes.

I suppose whether or not we support executing a 50-year-old man for a crime he committed half a lifetime ago depends on what you think the death penalty is for. Is it to satisfy the family of the victims? Is it for revenge? Is it for deterrence? Is it to make the world outside the prison a safer place?

Executing people in their 40s, 50s, and beyond makes more sense if your goal is something like revenge, less sense if your goal is a safer world with less violent crime. So, how we frame the death penalty (that is, how we answer the questions “what is it?” and “what is it for?”) shapes whether the graph above looks like social justice or social tragedy.

(View original at http://contexts.org/socimages)

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

Re-Entry: Personal Histories

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

Frequently Asked & Answered (FAAA)

Trying to get a Job with a Federal Conviction

http://jailtojob.com/wordpress/?p=497

Posted by Adogzheart

Hi from David D,

I’m seeking employment. I just did 10 and a half months in federal prison for contraband cigarettes. I’m a tractor trailer driver but I see that companies have an issue with me being a felon. My crime not a serious one but a problem. Can you help me?

Hello David,

There is little that can be done about your record as far as expungement. In that regard, the only available option is a Presidential pardon, which not many are granted.

I suggest to felons (poor word choice--j/r) looking for jobs with difficult situations is to contact elected officials. Contact all you can think of. City Council members, State Assemblymen, State Senators and the Congressmen from your district. These are all powerful people with many contacts.

In a well written letter, express your desire to be employed and once again become a productive member of society. Never ask for a job. Simply ask for suggestions that would help your situation. Always include your resume and contact information. Elected officials have staff members that answer letters and respond to inquiries from citizens. This method works well for ex-offenders that are skilled but meet with opposition due to to having criminal records.

I hope this helps.

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

20 December 2009

It never rains....

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Casino law dealt state a losing hand

via Today's Tribune-Review on 12/20/09

Now that the cards are face up on the table, the lawmakers who made that bet probably wish they had folded that night. Casino gambling has delivered a windfall, all right — but it's been one of fiascoes.

Posted via email from jimuleda's posterous

Western Pennsylvania's county jails grapple with addicts

via Today's Tribune-Review on 12/20/09

A high percentage of inmates have drug or alcohol issues, but many of them aren't identified or receive little treatment.

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

Insanity

Insanity.jpg

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wants/deeds

imgfave share your visual inspiration on vi.sualize.us

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Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

Is your man making good use of his time in prison or.....

via Prison Talk by marcsbeth on 12/20/09

Is your man a go getter even from prison or is he kinda lazy and prefers cards/domino's,sleeping versus taking classes,etc????? marc is adamantly determined NOT to return to prison!! his day is as follows;he gets up every morning at 4 am to write me.then he has breakfast,does his cleanup detail(his job),if there's money on the phone he calls me then.then he goes to welding class in the morning,masonry class in the afternoon and school in the evening.that's mon-thurs.he says he's determined not to waste time even in prison. he says he's trying to be realistic and realizing what he faces upon release ie,jobs are hard to come by,people's upturned noses,etc etc and he's wanting to learn some skills so he may have a better chance at finding work plus he wants schooling,too. but he said out of a couple thousand inmates only 4 signed up for the masonry course and he says he just thinks it's a shame how so many guys seem not to care at all about improving their lives and since he's been at the prison he's at he's seen so many guys leave and come back and he gets so disgusted cause he says they act like they don't even care. they come walking back in clapping each other on the back etc and he just thinks it's ridiculous.for me personally,if i had a man who was adamantly saying he wants to change his life yet wasn't taking any steps to do just that,i'd have a hard time believing him. so,what's your man like??? does he willingly participate in anything that could help him or do you have to push him??!! Ironically,i think the best thing marc did in prison is get counseling. that really seemed to help him and our relationship as he's learned some really good communication skills!!(my favorite being,"beth you have the right to feel any way you want to feel....") that's very calming to me if i'm upset about something!! anyway,not bragging or anything but i really am proud of my man's efforts to improve himself!!

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

2011 Budget Blues: Texas Dpt of Criminal Justice

2011 Budget Blues: Close prison units to shave 2.5% at TDCJ

via Grits for Breakfast by Gritsforbreakfast on 12/20/09

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst says Texas state agencies must reduce their budgets by 2.5% in each of the next four years to account for declining tax revenues, Jason Embry at the Austin Statesman reports ("Legislative leaders eye spending cuts to deal with looming budget hole," Dec. 20), providing an excellent short summary of the underlying source of the state's budget woes:

As compared with a year earlier, sales tax collections were down 14.4 percent in November, and those kinds of returns have hastened budget-cutting talk. But what's really driving the conversation is a decision that lawmakers made in wealthier times to put property tax cuts at the top of the state's permanent priority list.
In 2006, facing an order from the Texas Supreme Court, lawmakers passed a one-third reduction in school property taxes for operations, committing the state to spend $7.1 billion every year to hold those taxes down. But the tax increases that lawmakers passed at the same time to replace that money — most notably a revamped business tax — produce less than $3 billion per year.
So every two years, the state has to pull more than $8 billion away from other priorities, such as public schools, universities or prisons, to pay the rest of the cost of property tax cuts. Doing so wasn't too difficult when the state had surpluses, but now that they're gone, the property tax cuts threaten to eat up any revenue growth the state sees, even though many homeowners never saw much of a decrease in their tax bills.
To meet the state's commitment to hold down property taxes, to pay for an increasing number of people enrolling in public schools and colleges and joining Medicaid rolls and to replace the stimulus dollars used to pay for the current budget, lawmakers in 2011 might have to come up with $15 billion or more to balance the budget, which now totals $182 billion over two years.
That's a daunting number, but Dewhurst said he is convinced the state can close that gap without severe cuts in state services.

At the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, a 2.5% cut would amount to more than $125 million over the biennium. In years past, TDCJ's institutional division (which runs the state's 112 prison units) has been shielded from budget cuts, meaning that in 2003, when agencies were last cut to the bone, the only thing available to slash were treatment dollars.

I hope Texas officials won't make the same mistake in 2011. Instead, by investing more in diversion strategies and expanding on successes from the 2007 probation reforms, the state could actually close one or two prison units - as we've seen in other states - and use those employees to bring other facilities up to adequate staffing.

There are two ways to think about which prison units to cut: "Which units are most expensive?," and "Which units are most difficult to staff?"

If you're talking about the most expensive units, those are mostly TDCJ's older facilities which tend to have higher costs-per-prisoner. (See this post analyzing data on TDCJ unit age and cost.)

If you're talking about those where understaffing is chronic, you'd start in Dalhart, where TDCJ wages and working conditions don't favorably compete with factory farming of hogs or a nascent dairy and cheese-making industry that's cropped up there in the last decade.

There could also be political considerations. The local chamber-of-commerce crowd in Fort Bend County outside of Houston want a prison unit closed because it sits on land that has become increasingly valuable as the city of Sugarland has expanded and an airport was placed near the area. During the Sunset process last year, they were turned down when they suggested TDCJ close the unit and build a new one somewhere else. Perhaps they'd have more success during a budget crunch arguing the unit there should be eliminated outright.

In any event, to avoid massive new prison building in the future it's important that the state not limit budget cuts at TDCJ to probation, treatment and diversion programming, but instead "spread the pain" or even limit it to the institutional division, where they're still short 1,000 guards and could close units without necessarily eliminating jobs.

Now's the time to be thinking about alternative budget solutions because when the Lege session starts a year from now, demands for slashing 9-figure amounts from the budget could be quite immediate.

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

Notable prediction that prison population may decline in 2009

via Sentencing Law and Policy by Doug B. on 12/20/09

This AP article speculates, perhaps accurately, that the total US prison population may decline in 2009 for the first time in decades. Here are the details from the article:

The United States may soon see its prison population drop for the first time in almost four decades, a milestone in a nation that locks up more people than any other.
The inmate population has risen steadily since the early 1970s as states adopted get-tough policies that sent more people to prison and kept them there longer. But tight budgets now have states rethinking these policies and the costs that come with them....
The U.S. prison population dropped steadily during most of the 1960s, and there were a few small dips in 1970 and 1972. But it has risen every year since, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics....
In the past, prison populations have been lower when drafts were enacted, including during World War II and the wars in Korea and Vietnam. "People who go to war are young men, and young men are the most likely to get arrested or prosecuted," said James Austin, president of the JFA Institute, a research organization that advises states on prison issues. The ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan haven't involved in a draft.
Instead, the economic crisis forced states to reconsider who they put behind bars and how long they kept them there, said Kim English, research director for the Colorado Division of Criminal Justice.
In Texas, parole rates were once among the lowest in the nation, with as few as 15 percent of inmates being granted release as recently as five years ago. Now, the parole rate is more than 30 percent after Texas began identifying low-risk candidates for parole.
In Mississippi, a truth-in-sentencing law required drug offenders to serve 85 percent of their sentences. That's been reduced to less than 25 percent.
California's budget problems are expected to result in the release of 37,000 inmates in the next two years. The state also is under a federal court order to shed 40,000 inmates because its prisons are so overcrowded that they are no longer constitutional, Austin said.
States also are looking at ways to keep people from ever entering prison. A nationwide system of drug courts takes first-time felony offenders caught with less than a gram of illegal drugs and sets up a monitoring team to help with case management and therapy....
The reforms in many state prisons and courts come even as crime rates continue to drop nationwide. "It's economically driven, but the science is there to support it," Austin said. "They are saving money, but not doing it in a way that jeopardizes public safety." One exception to the trend is Florida, which has enacted a law requiring all convicts to serve a high percentage of their sentences. The law is straining the state's prison resources. "They know that they are stuck in a time bomb they can't get out of," Austin said.

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

The Blizzard Of 2009 In Time Lapse!

via Gothamist by Ben Muessig on 12/20/09

You've already seen photos of last night's blizzard and read news accounts about the snowstorm — but now you can watch it in time-lapse photography! This neat video from controlgeek shows snow accumulating in Brooklyn with a single image every thirty seconds from yesterday afternoon through this morning.

Posted via email from jimuleda's posterous

Program Assistant Position

THANKS, NNEKA.
j/r

Program to Aid Citizen Enterprise
Position Description

Program to Aid Citizen Enterprise (PACE) is a 41 year old nonprofit organization with a mission to strengthen the community-based nonprofit organizations that potentially or demonstrably can assist African American and economically disadvantaged communities to identify their needs and take effective action.

PACE does not discriminate in practices or employment opportunities on the basis of an individual’s race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion, age, sex, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status, disability. Or any other proscribed category set forth in federal or state regulations.

Position: Program Assistant

Responsible to: Executive Director (on an interim basis)

Responsibility: In this entry level position, the Program Assistant will provide support to the Executive Director and the Program Director in the management of the capacity building programs, consulting, and research and in the execution of meetings and public events.

Qualifications: A Bachelor’s Degree in business administration, social work, public policy or other related fields and 1 to 2 years work experience in an office setting is required. Candidate should have demonstrated interest in providing support to community-based nonprofit organizations serving the African American and disadvantaged communities in greater Pittsburgh. Good to excellent skills using office software including, but not limited to, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access. Candidate must have good written, oral communication, people and critical thinking skills and must possess an understanding of the critical importance of client confidentiality and discretion. Position requires an ability to work independently and some evening and weekend work.
Duties:

1. Assist in the management of program participant selection processes including, orientation of panelists, informational sessions for potential applicants, collecting and assembling applications, scheduling oral interviews, organizing panel day activities, calculating resultant scores and recording panel comments

2. Assists in program management including coordinating execution of grant contracts, scheduling assessments, arranging program orientations and group and individual training, monitoring grants, managing program files and the collection and assembly of program reporting and evaluative materials

3. Conducts research and prepares reports as directed

4. Assists in research, meeting preparation, recording of proceedings and report preparation for consulting projects

5. Responds to inquiries from applicants, program participants and the general public

6. Assists in the development of client invoices and project evaluations

7. Builds strong positive relationships with program participants and clients leading to increased participation and expanded/increased projects

8. Continued awareness of the external climate affecting the nonprofit sector in general and our constituents directly

9. Attends meetings, conferences and functions, as requested, on behalf of PACE

10. All other duties as assigned by the Executive Director

Other:
Candidate should have a team orientation and be able to work collegially and effectively in a small office environment and with collaborating partner organizations. Candidate should be inquisitive, creative, mature and interested in a career in nonprofit management.

Please send a cover letter, resume and salary history to:

Lucille E. Dabney
Executive Director
Program to Aid Citizen Enterprise
One Gateway Center, Suite 500
420 Fort Duquesne Blvd.
Pittsburgh, PA 15222

Open until January 4, 2009

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

CHRISTMAS DINNER AT NO-COST!

Thanks, Amber!
j/r

FREE CHRISTMAS DINNER

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Please share with the participants(or someone in NEED)that we have FREE DINNERS for Christmas Day
at ONE OF THESE THREE(3) Locations:

Westin Convention Center
1000 Penn Ave
11:00am - 2:00pm

Omni William Penn
11:00am - 2:00pm
525 William Penn Place

Sheraton Station Square
7 Station Square Dr
11:00am - 2:00pm

The dinners are FREE and the participants must select one of the three places and can bring guests.

Here is what is needed from the participants:

•       Name (Last and First)
•       Date of Birth
•       Address
•       City, St Zip Code
•       Telephone #
•       Family Size
•       Choice of hotel and Number of tickets needed

The participant(s) should contact Ms Donna Hurst @ 412) 325-3926 with the above information and pick up the ticket(s)
AT 610 Wood Street - 3rd floor, from Ms Hurst, as directed!

The Last Day to pick up the tickets is Wednesday December 23, 2009 between 9:00am - - 12:00 (noon)

Rodney D. Brown Sr.
Project Director, Mature Workers Program
Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh
610 Wood Street - 3rd Floor
Pittsburgh, PA 15222 Phone:
( 412) 325-3927

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

2010 Summer Youth Philanthropy Internship Applications Available

Good Morning Everyone,

Could you please pass on this information to your members?

Have a safe and happy holiday season!

:) Amber Farr

2010 Summer Youth Philanthropy Internship Applications Available

Recognizing the need to incorporate a youth perspective in its grant making, The Heinz Endowments will again employ recent high school graduates as youth philanthropy interns. An electronic application may be found HERE<http://www.heinz.org/UserFiles/File/2010SummerInterns/Application%20Final2.pdf>. Please note that the application is an interactive PDF file that opens with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader. When complete, clicking "submit" will generate an e-mail that allows for electronic submission. The required letter of recommendation form may be found HERE<http://www.heinz.org/UserFiles/File/2010SummerInterns/Letter%20of%20recommendation.pdf>.

Applications for the internship are due Friday, Feb. 26. Interested applicants are encouraged to watch a brief video about the program, available HERE<http://www.heinz.org/userfiles/library/heinz_internship_640x480.wmv>. A recap of the 2009 program is available HERE<http://www.heinz.org/programs_cms.aspx?SectionID=270>.

Two information sessions will be held for applicants at the Endowments' office at 625 Liberty Avenue, downtown, from 4 to 5 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 7, and Thursday, Feb. 4. Students interested in attending should RSVP to Linda Hall at (412) 338-2615. Attendance at an information session is not required, but past interns have found it to be helpful.

Now more than a decade old, the internship program will again provide youth with an opportunity to work to improve their region by developing and implementing a youth philanthropy project. The interns will research issues affecting youth and the environment in their communities, identify service priorities, develop funding guidelines and award charitable grants. In addition, students will learn about communications and media, completing video and podcast documentaries related to their work. Although the final number of internships available is still to be determined, each team will again award $25,000 in grants. Please e-mail Wayne Jones<mailto:wjones@heinz.org?subject=2010%20Summer%20Youth%20Philanthropy%20Internship%20Application> with any questions.
http://www.heinz.org/programs_cms.aspx?SectionID=2&ParentID=168

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

16 December 2009

"Welcome to Obama-ville" Sign at Colorado Tent City

via Change.org's End Homelessness Blog by Shannon Moriarty on 12/15/09

Last week, a mysterious sign appeared outside a Colorado tent city. It read, "Welcome to Obama-ville: Colorado's Fastest Growing Community." This simple sign prompted investigative news reports and a flurry of response from Colorado residents, wondering who created and paid for the sign.

Funny how a few words on a banner can get a rise out of people. But the people living in a tent city behind the sign? Well, they don't seem to shock us anymore.

KRDO News Channel 13 in Colorado Springs first spotted the sign in the woods off a highway on-ramp. Immediately, they launched an investigative report to identify the mysterious maker of the sign. This report generated a flurry of response. Some chided the misuse of money to create the sign, while others took issue with the political jab at Obama. Colorado's conservative media outlets whined about the lack of media attention being given to Colorado's tent city, and wondered if the sign read "Bush-ville" it would have the opposite effect.

All this banter about a sign in front of tent city. But the real question is this: would we be talking about this tent city in Colorado Springs if this sign was never there in the first place? Probably not.

Shame on us for not generating the same level of curiosity and concern about the people living in the tent city behind the sign as we have about this sign. Shame on us for politicizing homelessness and try and attribute it to any one person. Homelessness is the result of years of failed policies and whack priorities, for which people of all parties can be blamed.

If the goal of this sign was to get people talking, it has clearly worked. But don't let the sign in front of the homeless camp distract you from the real issues - the tough issues - that are manifested right behind the chain link fence. Who are these people? How did they end up homeless? Why aren't they staying in a shelter? What obstacles are preventing them from getting off the streets and into housing? These are the questions we really need to learn the answers to (perhaps through an investigative report?).

This story has an ending. Following the media flurry, the controversial "Obama-ville" sign was removed. It was replaced with another sign that reads: "Please Help: We Need Firewood, Propane, and Canned Food." Sadly, this message hasn't generated the same amount of outrage as the previous sign. It just doesn't seem to have much of a shock value.

Maybe our reaction to these signs say a lot more than the signs themselves.

Image & Video: KRDO

Posted via email from jimuleda's posterous

The Wire’s Other 100 Greatest Quotes.

The Wire’s Other 100 Greatest Quotes. (Massive Spoilers.)

via PostBourgie by G.D. on 12/15/09

The homie Jeremy Levine at Social Science Lite just hipped me to this video, which includes a lot of the moments many people thought were omitted in the first montage.

Posted via email from jimuleda's posterous

Prisons and Public Safety: Learning from the "Gitmo North" debate

via Governing through Crime by Jonathan Simon on 12/16/09

President Obama's announcement that the federal government will buy a mothballed supermax prison in northern Illinois (the fact that the such a facility was empty is itself an intriguing signal that the war on crime is drawing down) is bringing a new wave of criticism (mostly from Republicans) that this endangers public safety. As Helene Cooper and David Johnston, reporting in the NYTimes, summarize the thrust of concern:

“The administration has failed to explain how transferring terrorists to Gitmo North will make Americans safer than keeping terrorists off of our shores in the secure facility in Cuba,” Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate Republican leader, said in a statement. Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, told reporters he would not vote to “spend one dime to move those prisoners to the U.S.”

The upcoming debate is unlikely to be inspiring, but it will be revealing of two features of contemporary American political culture that have helped sustain mass incarceration.

1. Prisons are never enough to make us feel safe. We want them and gated communities. Even when we have a supermax prison it would be much better if those prisons that are separated by water and national borders. Now its true that the fear being expressed is not simply of the super terrorists themselves (who will apparently have a virtually 1:1 ratio with guards), but their colleagues who may decide to retaliate against ordinary Americans. But that "logic" does not hold up. What stops the terrorists now from retaliating against "ordinary Americans" by blowing up strip malls in northern Illinois or northern Kentucky for that matter? What is being expressed here instead is the profound influence of the "container" metaphor turned toward its carceral core.

2. Congress, whichever party is in or out of power, finds it very hard to be on the side of providing less protection to Americans against criminal violence of any kind. I argued in Governing through Crime, that Congress (and state legislatures) now find it natural to view themselves as representing American crime victims as the idealized citizens of the Republic. I predict plenty of Democrats will join with Republicans to block any actual transfer of prisoners.

If the Republicans get away with spinning this as Obama making ordinary Americans vulnerable in order to please liberal cosmopolitan elites (mostly in Europe), they will have effectively reprised the Nixon v. Ramsey Clark moves of 1968, despite a period of declining crime and rising environmental threat.

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

NY: A Brutal Failure of a Juvenile Injustice System

via TalkLeft by Jeralyn on 12/16/09

The release of this draft report (pdf)on New York's juvenile justice system should be eye-opening. To call the system failed, horrific and beyond the pale of acceptable policy doesn't begin to describe it.

The New York Times reports here.

The report, prepared by a task force appointed by Gov. David A. Paterson and led by Jeremy Travis, president of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, comes three months after a federal investigation found that excessive force was routinely used at four prisons, resulting in injuries as severe as broken bones and shattered teeth. The situation was so serious the Department of Justice, which made the investigation, threatened to take over the system.

The financial aspect is also absurd: New York is spending $210,000 per child to keep these juveniles, more than 50 % of whom were sentenced for misdemeanors, locked up. And,

More than 80 percent were black or Latino, even though blacks and Latinos make up less than half the state’s total youth population — a racial disparity that has never been explained, the report said.

This is a system in crisis, and New York needs to address it -- sooner, rather than later.

Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog

14 December 2009

What Matters Now: get the free ebook

via Seth's Blog by Seth Godin on 12/14/09

Now, more than ever, we need to shake things up.

Now, more than ever, we need a different way of thinking, a useful way to focus and the energy to turn the game around. I hope a new ebook I've organized will get you started on that path. It took months, but I think you'll find it worth it the effort. (Download here).

Here are more than seventy big thinkers, each sharing an idea for you to think about as we head into the new year. From bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert to brilliant tech thinker Kevin Kelly, from publisher Tim O'Reilly to radio host Dave Ramsey, there are some important people riffing about important ideas here. The ebook includes Tom Peters, Jackie Huba and Jason Fried, along with Gina Trapani, Bill Taylor and Alan Webber.

Here's the deal: it's free. Download it here. Or from any of the many sites around the web that are posting it with insightful commentary. Tweet it, email it, post it on your own site. I think it might be fun to make up your own riff and post it on your blog or online profile as well. It's a good exercise. Can we get this in the hands of 5 million people? You can find an easy to use version on Scribd as well and from wepapers. Please share.