THE LIBERAL VOICE

Downsizing prisons

Michelle Chen      Racewire

Initiatives for less-costly alternatives to mass incarceration, including early release of inmates and criminal policy reforms, are gaining currency in states like Michigan and Vermont, where corrections spending has rivaled social services and education.  Read full article below

                                                          Downsizing prisons.  

Downsizing prisons

End is near for Rockefeller drug laws: Gov. Paterson, NY lawmakers to eliminate mandatory jail time

BY Glenn Blain

www.nydailynews.com

ALBANY - Gov. Paterson and legislative leaders announced an agreement Friday to strike down some of the last remnants of the state's tough Rockefeller-era drug laws.

The deal eliminates mandatory minimum prison sentences for most non-violent, first- and second-time drug offenders and gives judges more leeway in putting people in rehab instead of jail.

Senator Webb's Act of Strength

by Katrina vanden Heuvel                     www.thenation.com

Now Senator Webb is poised to establish a commission with a broad mandate to examine issues like drug treatment, effective parole policy, racial injustice, education for inmates, reentry programs--the myriad of issues intertwined in wasteful, ineffective criminal justice policies. Look for him to lay out that mandate with specificity in the coming weeks, and make an aggressive push to bring this issue to the forefront in both Congress and the media, much as he was able to do with the GI Bill.   READ FULL ARTICLE

Bend America's prison bars: The time is ripe for penal reform

prison reform
Originally uploaded by niquewoodhousetv

Errol Louis
NY DAILY NEWS

America's penal system needs a top-to-bottom overhaul - and a movement of people ready to do something about it is taking shape nicely.

More than 2.1 million people are now behind bars in America - either in federal or state prisons or local jails - a larger proportion of the population than in any other civilized nation and a 500% increase since 1980. READ FULL ARTICLE HERE

New York State to examine Rockefeller Drug Laws

Governor Spitzer's Birthday Cake #2
Originally uploaded by DPA Network

By Errol Louis NY Daily News
Thursday, January 8th 2009, 4:00 AM

Gov. Paterson's promise Wednesday in his State of the State speech to overhaul New York's harsh, ineffective and costly Rockefeller drug laws represents a step in the right direction. With the state facing a $2 billion deficit, it's fiscally foolish to slap nonviolent, first-time drug offenders with 15-year mandatory minimum sentences, as required under the Rockefeller laws.

It's also cruel.

According to federal statistics, keeping a man behind bars in New York cost taxpayers $36,835 a year in 2006, meaning we're spending more than half a million dollars to lock up a single offender sentenced under Rockefeller.

We'd save billions by spending a fraction of that amount on sensible, proven, preventive measures like drug treatment, mentoring, job training and dropout prevention classes.

But Paterson shouldn't stop with Rockefeller: A significant part of the $2.4 billion corrections budget should be reallocated from incarceration to prevention. More than one inner-city New York neighborhood has so-called million-dollar blocks, places where the state and city are spending at least $1 million to imprison a handful of lawbreakers.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL ARTICLE

Infrastructure Investment: Subways vs. Prisons?

This is from Eric Lotke at the Campaign for America's Future Hat-tip to Peter Wagner of the Prison Policy Initiative. See also the first article in our series on the political economy of the prison crisis.

By Eric Lotke | December 11th, 2008 - 2:16pm ET

China has opened a new subway system every year for the past six years. The U.S. has opened 45 new prisons and jails. Who's setting up to lead in the 21st century?

"Expanding prisons mean more jobs," explained the Fayetteville Observer over the summer.

The rural North Carolina community was celebrating the $19 million expansion of a $90 million prison that opened in 2003 and immediately filled to capacity. Such growth is a boon for rural, economically distressed counties. "Prison jobs bring added payroll, boost housing markets and draw new retail customers to poor parts of the state," observed the Observer.

The good news is that public investment can work. The bad news is that better choices must be made. We need to distinguish between prisons for crime control and prisons as a jobs program, between building for the future and building for the past.

Read full article

US creating criminals, not citizens.

The number of prisoners in prisons for drugs equals the total number of prisoners in 1980! The good news: in the past 20 years spending for higher education has increased 21%. The bad news: in that same 20 years, spending for prisons increased 127%. By Jonathan Adams Racewire/ColorLines

Prop. 5 vs. the prison-industrial complex

By Ethan Nadelmann    The Los Angles Times
November 3, 2008

But what's so depressing about this Gang of Five's united opposition to Proposition 5 is their combination of dishonesty and myopia.

A duplicitous TV ad that features Sen. Dianne Feinstein and is paid for by the prison guards union, beer distributors and casino interests tell us that Proposition 5 will cost too much. But those ads do not acknowledge, cite or even bother to challenge the analysis of the state's legislative analyst's office. Estimated annual cost: $1 billion. Estimated annual savings: $1 billion. One-time savings in capital outlay costs: $2.5 billion. That makes Proposition 5 a wash on annual costs and a true bargain for taxpayers. In fact, it's only the third ballot initiative in the last decade that contains quantifiable cuts to state spending. Only one of those ballot initiatives has passed: Proposition 36, California's first treatment-instead-of-incarceration initiative, which voters passed in 2000.

So why the effort to deceive voters?

It's all about -- no surprise -- resources and power. Why is the prison-industrial complex rearing its fearsome head right now? Because Proposition 5 would effectively transfer $1 billion from prison and parole to treatment and rehabilitation. That means fewer jobs in a massive prison system now consuming about 10% of the state's budget and more resources for programs proven to reduce drug abuse, crime and recidivism more cheaply and effectively than prison and parole.

Read full article on  the LA Times

The Prison Industrial Complex

Here is a 4 minute piece by the Real News Network on the Prison Industrial Complex