U.S. Bureau of Prisons to review solitary confinement

The Federal Bureau of Prisons has agreed to a comprehensive review of the use of solitary confinement in its prisons, including the fiscal and public safety consequences of the controversial practice, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin said on Monday.

A spokesman from the bureau confirmed that the National Institute of Corrections plans to retain an independent auditor “in the weeks ahead” to examine the use of solitary confinement, which is also known as restrictive housing.

“We are confident that the audit will yield valuable information to improve our operations, and we thank Senator Durbin for his continued interest in this very important topic,” spokesman Chris Burke said in a statement.

Prisoners in isolation are often confined to small cells without windows for up to 23 hours a day. Durbin’s office said the practice can have a severe psychological impact on inmates and that more than half of all suicides committed in prisons occur in solitary confinement.

In Durbin’s state of Illinois, 56 percent of inmates have spent some time in segregated housing.

“The United States holds more prisoners in solitary confinement than any other democratic nation in the world, and the dramatic expansion of solitary confinement is a human rights issue we can’t ignore,” said Durbin, who chaired a Senate hearing on the use of solitary confinement last year.

Continue Reading @ Global Post

 

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Incapacitated prisoners too costly to keep

By Jamie Fellner
Special to The Bee

California has a hard time letting dying and incapacitated prisoners leave: Over the past two years, an average of 37 prisoners a year received either medical parole (if incapacitated) or a sentence recall (if dying). That’s 0.028 percent of the prison population.

There are no national figures, but our research suggests state and federal laws permitting the early release of prisoners who are terminally ill, permanently incapacitated or simply too old to get out of bed are greatly underutilized.

Release on medical grounds is conspicuous by its absence.

In the Federal Bureau of Prisons – which with 218,000 prisoners, operates the largest prison system in the country – 30 prisoners received compassionate release in 2011 and 37 thus far in 2012. At 0.017 percent of the population, that’s fewer proportionally than in California. Texas is doing better, with 100 prisoners last year – 0.066 – although hardly a figure to feel good about. New York has never exceeded 10 medical parolees in a year.

Why so few?

Officials cite public safety.

Most people would agree that early release on medical grounds would be unwarranted for a prisoner capable of committing a serious crime and likely to do so. The head of the Texas Board of Parole recently suggested that a prisoner on death’s doorstep might have a miraculous recovery and commit a serious crime. She didn’t point to any statistics on the recidivism of dying or incapacitated prisoners who secure early release. We suspect the cases are few and far between.

Continue Reading @ SacBee

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Waiting List for Addiction Treatment in Federal Prisons Is 51,000 Inmates Long

Addicted prisoners are waiting years for therapy; The Feds have more money than states….if this is the situation in Fed Pens,  think about state prisons…..

The Fix / By Seth Ferranti

Federal prisons are full of drug offenders—more than 90,000 of them, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO)  report released this week. Yet only about a third of those prisoners— most of them low-level drug dealers, users and addicts—are receiving treatment to combat their addictions. “Its really tragic,” one longtime federal prisoner tells  The Fix . “The feds lock up all these crackheads and junkies and then don’t even give them any programs to get them off drugs. Worse still, the one drug program they do have,  RDAP, has all types of restrictions on who can get in, for what crime, etc. If you don’t fit the specific criteria, you can’t get in.”

The waiting list for the Bureau of Prisons’ Residential Drug Abuse Program, which allows successful participants to get up to a year off their sentences, is long— 51,000 inmates long, according to the GAO report. “I have been in prison 15 years, waiting to get into the drug program,” another prisoner tells us. “What they do is they run you right to the door. Like I wasn’t even eligible to sign up until I was 36 months short [of release]. Now I have been on the RDAP unit for seven months and I’m  still not in the program. They wait until you are 28 months short or less till they put you in. Then it takes nine months or so for the program and you get 12 months off and six months’ halfway house—that’s how it’s supposed to work. But if I don’t get in by next month the clock is ticking on my 12 months off.”

Bureau of Prisons policies, and the way they’re carried out, mean that drug addicts serving long sentences don’t get treatment until right before they go home—despite the  wide availability  of drugs inside. “I’ve been doing drugs for 15 years in prison,” the second prisoner says. “And now I have to get clean so I can complete the program and go home. It’s not easy: I’m a drug addict.” Prisoners who relapse or violate any prison rule or regulation are  kicked out  of RDAP. But usually these prisoners are the ones that need the program the most. Instead of helping long-term prisoners get treatment early, the BOP supports a system that enables drug use and only entices prisoners to quit much later. “Of course I want the year off,” says the addicted prisoner. “Of course I want to go home. But I wish I didn’t have to wait so long to get the treatment I need, so that I can go out and live a drug- and crime-free life and not come back to prison.”

 

Seth Ferranti is serving 25 years for drug trafficking. This is his first column for The Fix. To learn more about prisoners who are working hard at a commutation, check out straight-a-guide.com. for more of Ferranti’s writings, go to gorillaconvict.com.

 

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Report: BOP Rarely Seeks ‘Compassionate’ Release

 

Photo by danielfoster437, via Flickr

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) rarely seeks early release for prisoners facing imminent death or serious incapacitation, according to a report released today by the advocacy groups Human Rights Watch and Families Against Mandatory Minimums.

In 1984, Congress gave federal courts authority to grant early release — also referred to as “compassionate release” — for “extraordinary and compelling” reasons, but only when a motion to do so has been submitted by the BOP.

The BOP has averaged about two dozen such motions each year since 1992, according to the study. The BOP requires prisoners to be within 12 months of death or irrevocably incapacitated in order to be considered for compassionate release; prisoners do not have the right to challenge BOP decisions in court.

The report’s authors recommend that the BOP bring early release motions to court whenever a prisoner can present “extraordinary and compelling” reasons for release, “regardless of whether bureau officials believe early release is warranted.”

Read the study HERE.

Via The Crime Report

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An American Gulag: Descending into Madness at Supermax

A detailed new federal lawsuit alleges chronic abuse and neglect of mentally ill prisoners at America’s most famous prison. (First in a three-part series.)

Index of Photographic Exhibits to Plaintiffs’ Complaint, Bacote, et al v. United States Bureau of Prisons, et al

 

Andrew Cohen

When Jack Powers arrived at maximum-security federal prison in Atlanta in 1990 after a bank robbery conviction, he had never displayed symptoms of or been treated for mental illness. Still in custody a few years later, he witnessed three inmates, believed to be members of the Aryan Brotherhood gang, kill another inmate. Powers tried to help the victim get medical attention, and was quickly transferred to a segregated unit for his safety, but it didn’t stop the gang’s members from quickly threatening him.

Not then. And certainly not after Powers testified (not once but twice) for the federal government against the assailants. The threats against him continued and Powers was soon transferred to a federal prison in Pennsylvania, where he was threatened even after he was put into protective custody. By this time, Powers had developed insomnia and anxiety attacks and was diagnosed by a prison psychologist as suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Above: Jack Powers

Instead of giving Powers medicine, or proper mental health therapy, officials transferred him yet again, this time to another federal prison in New Jersey. There, Powers was informed by officials that he would be removed from a witness protection program and transferred back into the prison’s general population. Fearing for his life, Powers escaped. When he was recaptured two days later he was sent to ADX-Florence, part of a sprawling prison complex near Florence, Colorado often referred to as “ADX” or Supermax,” America’s most famous and secure federal prison.

From there, things got worse. The Supermax complex, made up of different secure prison units and facilities, is laden with members of the Brotherhood and Powers was no safer than he had been anywhere else. Over and over again he was threatened at the Colorado prison. Over and over again he injured or mutilated himself in response. Over and over again he was transferred to federal government’s special mental health prison facility in Missouri, diagnosed with PTSD, and given medication. Over and over again that medication was taken away when he came back to Supermax.

As he sits today in Supermax, Powers had amputated his fingers, a testicle, his scrotum and his earlobes, has cut his Achilles tendon, and had tried several times to kill himself. Those tattoos you see? Powers had none until 2009, when he started mutilating with a razor and carbon paper. He did much of this — including biting off his pinkie and cutting skin off his face — in the Control Unit at ADX while prison officials consistently refused to treat his diagnosed mental illness. Rules are rules, prison officials told him, and no prisoners in that unit were to be given psychotropic medicine no matter how badly they needed it.

Continue Reading @ The Atlantic

 

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Too Many Prisoners

Editorial

The Justice Department in its recent annual report on federal sentencing issues wisely acknowledged that public safety can be maximized without maximizing prison spending. As it noted, the growing federal prison population, now more than 218,000 inmates, and a prison budget of almost $6.2 billion are “incompatible with a balanced crime policy and are unsustainable.”

The department calls for reforms “to make our public safety expenditures smarter and more productive.” Yet it fails to address sentencing changes that should be made, which would significantly reduce the problem of overincarceration in federal prisons.

Last fall, the United States Sentencing Commission issued a comprehensive report that said mandatory minimum sentences are often “excessively severe,” especially for people convicted of drug-trafficking offenses, who make up more than 75 percent of those given such sentences. Mandatory minimums have contributed in the last 20 years to the near tripling of federal prisoners, with more than half the prisoners now in for drug crimes.

There is no good evidence that long mandatory sentences deter crime. There is very good evidence that older prisoners (45 and up) are the least dangerous and that many should be released.

The Justice Department report does not mention mandatory minimum sentences or their major contribution to overincarceration in federal prisons. And it fails to urge Congress to make repealing mandatory minimums a high priority, as it should. It does not mention releasing older prisoners, which the Federal Bureau of Prisons has the power to do.

Nor does it mention adjusting its own policies on drug cases so it would put away fewer offenders not considered dangerous. About 25,000 people were convicted of federal drug offenses last year, almost the same number as during the Bush administration in 2008 — a substantial proportion in low-level roles of drug trafficking, according to the Sentencing Commission.

The department sensibly calls for more cost-effective prison policies, but that would require reconsideration of the basic purpose of punishment. The unsustainable federal prison budget and the rising inmate population reflect the country’s long, wasteful embrace of retribution. Both numbers are higher than they need to be for public safety.

Via @ The New York Times

 

Supermax: The Faces of a Prison’s Mentally Ill

In a lawsuit filed yesterday, these inmates at America‘s most famous and secure prison allege a cycle of abuse and madness, neglect, and retribution.

Andrew Cohen

 

Index of Photographic Exhibits to Plaintiffs’ Complaint, Bacote, et al v. United States Bureau of Prisons, et Al.

 

You don’t get to be an inmate at ADX-Florence, America’s most famous and secure prison, without having first achieved a measure of infamy in the nation’s penal system. Name a convicted terrorist, foreign or domestic, and there is a strong likelihood that he is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole at the maximum security federal facility in southern Colorado. Terry Nichols. Ramzi Yousef. Ted Kaczynski. Zacarious Moussaoui. Eric Robert Rudolph. Richard Reid. They are all there — all the eggs in one basket, you might say.

RELATED STORY

An American Gulag: Descending into Madness at Supermax

But there are hundreds of other prisoners at the federal prison complex known to the world as “ADX” or “Supermax” you likely have never heard of and who have made it to the facility because they have run into trouble at other prisons around the nation. The Aryan Brotherhood is represented at the prison, for example, and so are members of other notorious prison gangs. As a prisoner, you may be assigned to Supermax if you attack another inmate, or if you injure a guard, or if prison officials otherwise believe you present a particular threat to prison staff or other inmates.

Each of five prisoners named as plaintiffs in a new civil rights case filed Monday against the Bureau of Prisons fall into this category. So do the six other inmates whose stories are chronicled in the long complaint, which alleges that prison officials are failing or refusing to adequately diagnose and treat mentally ill prisoners in their care. In some cases, these men were mentally ill, or retarded, before they came to Colorado. In other cases, the inhumane treatment of the men has made them mad, or at least exacerbated their preexisting mental health problems.

The lawsuit, styled Bacote v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, seeks to force the federal officials to provide better mental health care for these inmates. But the litigation also raises fundamental questions about how the Bureau of Prisons treats these men. They are felons, violent felons in most cases, but even so they are entitled to be treated in a humane way by government officials. The Eighth Amendment, with its prescription against “cruel and unusual punishment,” commands this. And so do explicit federal laws and policies.

No evaluation of this new case, or of the fate of America’s mentally ill prisoners more generally, can be complete without a look into the narratives of the lives of the men who are being punished in this fashion. It is a haunting view. Their madness begets cruelty and indifference from prison officials and doctors. And the cruelty and indifference from the officials and doctors begets more madness. In the meantime, the American taxpayer pays for all of it; the alleged abuse and neglect, and even torture, is done in our name.

In our name — but not necessarily done for our own good. “One common misconception about ADX is that everybody there is never getting out of prison. That’s not true, and it’s one of the main problems with failing to treat the mentally ill while they are there,” says Ed Aro, a partner at Arnold & Porter, the venerable law firm that brought the lawsuit, along with the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. Aro adds:

We currently represent almost 50 inmates who are or recently have been housed at ADX. One is already in the community and was released with no transitional assistance whatsoever. 11 more will be released within 5 years, 18 within 10 years and 28 within 20 years. Without treatment, these people will have a very difficult time reentering society safely and successfully.

Continue Reading @ The Atlantic

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10 corrections resolutions for 2012

As we get ready to ring in the new year, a good plan is to develop detailed goals that are more realistic for lasting societal change in a correctional setting.

Image via Wikipedia

By Robert Hood

As 2011 comes to an end, it is time to make plans for 2012. Many people are thinking of resolutions for the New Year. Each year millions of adults resolve to “get in shape” or “lose weight.” While the effort to adopt resolutions shows an optimistic sense of good intent personally, the same idea can be applied to your profession as a corrections officer.

As we get ready to ring in 2012, it’s a good time to develop detailed goals that are more realistic for lasting societal change in a correctional setting.

During recent personal visits to jails, prisons, and community corrections facilities, along with criminal justice conference attendance, I heard recurring themes from colleagues across the United States. No specific order was used in preparing this list of initiatives for corrections:

1. Recommend changes for new FBOP director.

Since 1930 only seven directors served the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP). Harley Lappin retired on May 7, 2011 after eight years as the agency’s most recent director, and the agency has been without a leader for the past eight months.

On December 21 the Attorney General appointed Charles Samuels, Jr. to serve as the 8th Director. Samuals was the FBOP’s Assistant Director since January 2011. He was responsible for all inmate management and program functions.

Recommendations to improve the federal prison system include:
• Provide greater public/media access to institutions to enhance offender reentry initiatives
• Increase evidenced-based programs designed to reduce recidivism
• Develop proactive training to reduce the level of staff misconduct

The FBOP has 217,000 inmates and 38,000 staff. Most local and state correctional systems follow the federal system’s model. Director Samuels will be tasked to bring major changes during budget and staff reductions.

2. Discontinue glorifying hardcore sheriffs/jail administrators.

Greater recognition is needed for the men and women who effectively manage our nation’s 2.3 million offenders. Far too much attention is placed on controversial leaders using pink underwear, tent cities, roundups of illegal immigrants, and other “above the law” tactics.

3. Provide geographic uniformity in capital punishment.

Thirty-four states have the death penalty (16 states and the District of Columbia do not have capital crimes). More than 98 percent of the men and women on death rows across the United States are incarcerated as a result of state laws. If the public wants to maintain capital punishment, then provide more consistency among states.

4. Address mental illness in correctional settings.

There is an inherent disconnect between the security mission and mental health considerations. There are perhaps as many as 300,000 offenders in jails and prisons suffering from mental disorders, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression. Mental health services are often limited to brief cell-side conversations with mental health staff, and excessive use of medication. Incarceration by its very nature has an adverse effect on mental health.

5. Reduce levels of incarceration.

America has one-quarter of the world’s prisoners. More than seven million people are under correctional supervision in this country. We are not just incarcerating dangerous predators. More than one million prisoners in the United States are serving time for nonviolent offenses. In the federal prison system, for example, 55.7 percent of the inmates are classified as minimum or low security. Approximately 50 percent off all federal offenders are in for drug offenses. Eleven percent are held for immigration offenses.

The prison population is growing 13 times faster than the general population and is cost-prohibited. State correctional spending has quadrupled in the last two decades and now totals $52 billion a year.

Reduce sentences for non-violent offenders. Start with the 100,000 youth under the age of 18 that are released from juvenile correctional facilities each year. Analyze their prison experience and reduce this target group currently inside institutional settings. We should invest in our public schools instead of schools of crime.

6. Assist children of the offender.

More than 54 percent of offenders are parents with minor children. One in every 28 children has a parent incarcerated. Two-thirds of these children’s parents were incarcerated for nonviolent offenses. Work to reduce the cycle of crime by helping to mentor children without ongoing parental support.

7. Start “correcting” in “correctional institutions.”

Far too many facilities are just housing offenders. The label “correctional institution” should be earned. It needs to be applied to public and private facilities exceeding the basic requirements used during internal and external audits. New facilities should be constructed with reentry to the community in mind. Remember 95 percent of all offenders are released to the community. How people are handled as inmates will determine how they interact in public.

Key indicators such as recidivism rates, evidence-based reentry programs, percentage of inmate enrollments, and other positive characteristics need to be measured. Institutions are public buildings. Engage families and community members in the entire incarceration and reentry process.

8. Close GITMO (The Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility).

The Gitmo facility holds only 171 detainees on 45 square-miles of a piece of island. The prison is the most expensive prison on earth, with base renovations estimated around $2 billion. The cost of housing each detainee is 30 times the cost of keeping a captive on United States soil. The nation’s most secure federal prison in Colorado currently holds only 451 sentenced inmates; mostly terrorists, gang members, and spies. Shut down Gitmo and place these detainees in a separate section of this facility. Administrators will just need to separate those sentenced from detainees. An inmate population totaling 622 should be no problem for the “Alcatraz of the Rockies.”

9. Enhance evidence-based reentry programs.

Budget reductions often lead to diminished program opportunities for offenders.

Since most inmates will return to the community, effective programs should be identified and retained. Victim offender mediation, faith-based programs, education/vocational classes, drug treatment, parenting, alternatives to violence, and contemplative offerings (meditation, yoga, prayer) should be offered. Use of volunteers provides an invaluable asset for correctional staff. Without effective intervention programs, we are merely postponing the time when prisoners return to prison. If states could reduce their recidivism rates by just 10 percent, they could save more than $635 million combined in one year alone in averted prison costs.

10. Enhance staff training and address misconduct.

Staffing issues have become more critical in the face of budget reductions. Ongoing staffing analysis is needed. Quality training and proactive discussions on reducing staff misconduct would be of value.

Policy statements should identify an adequate number and types of staff to ensure the safety and security of staff, conduct operations, programs, and activities. The policy should also state the authority behind it (statutes, etc.). Staff should receive ongoing training on ethics using data from those who were found guilty of sustained misconduct.

Resolutions are much easier to make than to keep. Hopefully during 2012 correctional practitioners will strive to improve the correctional “system” by using the resolutions provided.

What is your corrections-focused resolution for 2012? What resolution do you think decision makers in the field should be making?

Via CorrectionsOne

True cost of drugs: More than half of inmates currently in U.S. federal prisons were convicted of narcotic offenses

By Daily Mail Reporter

More than 50 per cent on inmates in U.S. federal prisons were jailed for drug offences, shocking new figures show.

The statistics from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, an agency of the U.S. Department of Justice, reveal that out of a total inmate population of 215,888, 102,391 (that’s 50.8 per cent) were jailed for drug offences.

The second highest crime area was weapons, explosives and arson offences with a prison population of 30,509, that’s 15.1 per cent, according to the figures published on the Department’s website on May 28 of this year.

Menace of drugs: 50.8 per cent of federal prison inmates were jailed for narcotics offences, a new report shows

Continue Reading @ Mail OnLine UK

Inmates protest CA Men’s Colony by not eating state-issued food

About a thousand inmates at the California Men’s Colony near San Luis Obispo are unhappy about prison policies, and they’re demonstrating by not eating state-issued food.

This demonstration started Monday morning at breakfast; that’s when about 90 percent of a prison yard refused to go to the cafeteria.

Officials say they are still eating, however, by buying food from a prison canteen.

A number of family members of those inmates say they’re not eating anything in a hunger strike, but prison officials say that’s not the case.

They say there’s no one starving there; there’s about 3,600 inmates at the medium-security prison.

Continue Reading….