Humane Exposures Blog

If you don’t mind salty language, you may really like, as we did, Comedy Central’s Jeff Ross Roasts Criminals at Brazos Co. Jail. Very funny, touching and informative. Since mental hospitals put a million patients on the streets in the ’70s, most now live on the streets or in prisons. The vast majority are in for non-violent drug crimes.
Jeff did “roasts” in a Women’s section and a Men’s. One interchange blew us away: He asked a very pretty young girl what she was in for. “Theft.” was her answer. “What did you steal?” Ross asked. Her answer: “Baby formula.” He then joked, “Did you steal it from a baby?”

The Illinois Legislature has passed and sent to Gov. Bruce Rauner three bills of significant reform legislation right-sizing the criminal justice system and expanding restorative justice opportunities to keep juveniles out of the system. Among the measures sitting on Gov. Rauner’s desk are bills designed to reduce the number of juveniles automatically transferred to adult court as well as those who automatically join the adult prison population.

Should they become law, none of the bills would mean that juveniles could no longer be tried as adults or that the most dangerous and violent among them would be allowed to join other juveniles in detention centers. Proponents hope these pending laws will increase the opportunity for more juvenile offenders to get the services they need to become contributing members of society rather than puting their feet on the path to adult criminal activity.

Gov. Rauner’s office has said he will thoroughly review the bills. Given his pledge to reform Illinois criminal justice system and his appointment of a commission charged with doing so, many are optimistic they will become law.

Here are the three most relevant bills::

— SB1560 would bar juveniles charged with misdemeanors from being automatically sent to state juvenile prisons, where they often advance to more serious crimes after their release, and instead hook them up with rehabilitative services in their own communities. Some 110 youths each year would be impacted by the switch.

— HB3718 would end the automatic transfer of many young offenders to adult prisons and instead let juvenile judges make that call for crimes that do not involve physical harm to a person. Transfer to youth or adult prisons for more serious crimes including murder, aggravated criminal sexual assault and aggravated battery with a firearm would remain automatic, but only for 16 and 17-year-olds. A judge’s review would be required for those ages 15 and younger.

These proposed changes came in response to concerns expressed by the Illinois Supreme Court regarding the lack of judicial discretion to deal with such cases. And not only will those changes increase our chances to catch kids before they are hardened by the adult system, but it also will reduce overcrowding.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, who championed the change, has said it would result in a 70 percent reduction in automatic transfers of juveniles to adult court in Cook County. She told a Chicago gathering last December:

Automatic transfers are devastating to our young people and our communities. We have a responsibility to ensure a juvenile justice system that is fair and responsive to our young people. The lack of due process robs young people of the fair hearing to determine whether or not they are suitable for the juvenile system’s rehabilitative opportunities.

— HB2567 would help keep children younger than the age of 13 out of juvenile detention by requiring local authorities to contact the Comprehensive Community-Based Youth Services network. Only if such services could not be secured would the youth be placed in detention.

If these three bills are signed by the governor and become law, the reforms will be another welcome giant step Illinois took to reform the way it treats juvenile offenders after the state agreed as part of a court settlement to ban solitary confinement at state detention centers.

In a recent editorial, The Dispatch and The Rock Island Argus Wrote:

As we said in response to that overdue reform, if the notion of rehabilitation is to be more than fiction, we must pursue policies which help to turn lives around. It’s not about coddling criminals. It’s about not creating hardened, lifetime ones and instead fostering productive adult members of society.

We salute juvenile justice advocates, members of the General Assembly led by sponsors including Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, and Rep. Elaine Nekritz, D-Northbrook, for working to return Illinois to its leadership role in providing fair and effective juvenile justice. And we urge the reform-minded governor to sign them into law.

Orlando-based homeless advocate Thomas Rebman was homeless in nine cities over 75 days and found that in all of them (including Pensacola, New Orleans, Houston, Phoenix and Los Angeles) the blame game hampered efforts to combat homelessness.

Photo by Susan Madden Lankford

He writes:

In every municipality I visited, members of the groups trying to fix homelessness — government, continuums of care, service providers and even homeless advocates — are arguing over polar views on how to deal with the problem in their locale. This creates a natural divide among the stakeholders that cannot be overcome. In communities that have made significant and measured progress; it has been accomplished in spite of this fact.

Rebman believes that homelessness will never be solved in today’s political and social environment. He thinks that every community, despite its commitment to the cause, is completely immobilized by a cycle of blame. Entities are arguing over extreme views and pointing fingers at each other, because our society requires it for them to remain viable as an organization. So nothing gets done. He adds:

We expect the people trying to help the homeless to give us one-minute sound bites on why they are the organization that should be funded, so we can get back to our lives. How can they unite to solve the problem when they must compete for their survival?

Governments are under pressure to justify their behavior, not actually solve the problem. Law enforcement is painted with a broad brush as uncaring and even aggressive, to gain support. Advocates for the homeless are relegated to sensationalism to achieve anything at all for the people they serve.

The sad truth is that the public, knowingly, apathetically or through coercion, allows known lies to proliferate and destroy any chance we have for success. We convince other people that it is the fault of social service agencies, which attract the homeless. Or it is the government officials who are greedy, or law enforcement acting mean to them. Perhaps it is those left-wing homeless advocates who exaggerate the problem, or the business leaders who want them out of the city just to make more money. Finally, the majority of citizens tell themselves the ultimate lie: It is the homeless who are to blame; they are lazy and take advantage of the system.

So how does Rebman believe we will succeed in  eliminating homelessness–besides providing homes for them, which has worked in Utah, Alberta, Minnesota, Massachusetts and elsewhere?

It is very simple, yet almost impossible. We need to destroy stereotypes caused by the constant finger-pointing necessary for financial survival. We do that through public education and awareness. True education and constant exposure of the problems will quickly lead to sustainable solutions. The problem is our only common ground; it is the only point on which we all agree. Put public awareness first, not last.

Franky, Bea, Jacs

At a time when Orange is the New Black is delighting U.S. audiences and media, while drawing attention to the shocking plight of women behind bars—much as Bad Girls did in Britain—Australia’s Wentworth (in some countries titled Wentworth Prison and in Poland called Wiezienie dla kobiet) is a compelling, edge-of-your-seat drama down under.

Currently, Netflix is streaming two seasons (22 episodes; 2013-2014) of this series—including this episode seasonhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRa5IgRhu4A&list=PLvMei5sfDNdtS9bGkO65bzTOW-mrSNvT_ . A third 12-episode season is airing in Australia now and a fourth has been ordered.

Wentworth just won two of Australia’s top TV honors (Logies) for Most Outstanding Drama Series (two years running) and Most Outstanding Dramatic Actress (lead Danielle Cormack). The show has also taken the Best TV Drama Series ASTRA Awards for the past two years. The program has been nominated for 19 other awards, including TV Choice Best International Show and 13 acting noms for eight cast members, including two for creepy Kris McQuade as ubervillainess Jacs Holt.

Wentworth serves as a contemporary re-imagining of Prisoner, which ran for 692 episodes on Australian TV from 1979 to 1986. Set in modern day, the current series centers on Bea Smith (Cormack) who is imprisoned for attempted murder of her abusive husband.

Unlike the situation in real U.S. prisons, where 60% of female inmates are in for non-violent drug or drug-related theft crimes, these Aussie gals have mostly done the heavy stuff.

Wentworth has received a mostly positive reception from critics, and the first episode became the most watched Australian drama series premiere in Foxtel history. The series was picked up by 20 countries so far.

Ben Pobjie writing in Australia’s The Age wrote“so rarely in Australian TV do we see well-written characters collide with dead-on casting and tense, atmospheric direction as they have here. Wentworth is a powerful, almost cinematic drama with its own identity that incorporates echoes of the original Prisoner series.”

The plot follows several compelling story lines, but the main one is the path of newbie Bea Smith who soon learns that she has to deal with the top-dog prisoner, tough-as nails, lesbian Franky Doyle, who heads a gang of gals and brooks no nonsense. Early on, in an unexpected prison riot, the “governor” (warden) is mysteriously murdered. She was the wife of guard Will Jackson (twice-nominated ASTRA Award Best Actor Robbie Magasiva) and the secret mistress of guard Matthew Fletcher (twice –nominated Best Actor Aaron Jeffrey). She is replaced by a new governor who tries some reforms, while having an adulterous lesbian affair with prisoner Franky.

Before long, Franky’s power is seriously challenged by the arrival of Jacs Holt, matriarch of a major crime gang on the outside and instant head of a tough rival posse inside. Overt and covert warfare ensues, and Bea finds herself caught in the middle.

Jacs orders her son Brayden, who is secretly dating Bea’s beloved daughter Debbie and shooting heroin with her, to kill her with an overdose. Revenging this act sets in motion the main plot of both seasons, although a hell of a lot of good and evil stuff goes on simultaneously.

As in Orange is the New Black, one of the most compelling characters is a transgender woman (wonderfully played by Socratis Otto) who becomes a key figure in plots and counter-plots, foiling a murder attempt and trying desperately to get a reliable source for her needed female hormones.

Following the end of the first season, it was revealed with much Aussie excitement that notorious Prisoner character Joan “The Freak” Ferguson, a sadistic, lesbian prison officer, would be introduced in the second season as the new governor. She meddles in everyone’s lives and schemes against prisoners, guards and even her boss on the prison board of governors. Tall, imposing Pamela Rabe, who is greatly hateful in the role, was ASTRA-nominated this year for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor.

I peeked at the plot synopses for the episodes of Season 3 already aired, and Ferguson’s back raising hell with Bea, who is now top-dog, after having bested Franky in a major knife fight. I can’t wait for Series 3 to come to Netflix later this year or next, although you can already catch some episodes on YouTube.

Plot elements in the white-knuckle first two seasons include drug smuggling, attempted murder, successful murder, attempted and successful suicide, all kinds of violence, sarcasm, sex in a garden shed, caring for a sick magpie, a clever prison escape, matricide and many more of the things that today’s viewer craves. Highly recommended, except for the very squeamish.

Important issues crying out for prison reform include abuse of solitary confinement, drug smuggling and abuse, sex between prisoners and guards, sadistic wardens, limited programs and privileges and no on-site contact with children.

Women-in-prison drama’s like “Orange Is the New Black” (OITNB), Australia’s “Wentworth” and Britain’s “Bad Girls” and investigative documentaries like Diane Sawyer’s “A Nation of Women Behind Bars” highlight life in lockdown and have opened up a national conversation about the lives and treatment of female prisoners.

When it comes to portraying women in prison, television either heightens the reality as seen in “OITNB,” the U.K.’s “Bad Girls” and Australia’s dark drama “Wentworth” or takes us behind the concrete walls and barbed-wire fences to see the real faces of female prisoners in America. Both approaches humanize incarcerated women and help us understand how they are more than criminals– that they are mothers, daughters, sisters, wives and best friends.

Episode of Foxtel Australia’s thrilling, dark drama “Wentworth”

In the alternate reality of Danbury Prison, where “OITNB” takes place, life behind bars is sometimes portrayed as a strict summer camp where friendships are made, alliances are formed, and sing-alongs and dance parties help break up the monotony. Other times we are led down the darker corridors of prison life, repositories of assault, abuse of power, gang wars, suicide, murder, paralyzing fear and desperate loneliness. The same is true of the British and Australian dramas set in this harrowing millieu.

The Washington Post has observed:

In a nation whose justice system often offers little more than one-size-fits-all injustice, a television series that inspires viewers to see convicts as fellow human beings can help us better understand and perhaps have a bit more empathy toward them. We should not confuse a TV program with a criminology course, but ‘Orange is the New Black’ goes a long way toward narrowing the gap between our perceptions of convicts and the sometimes surprising reality.

Balancing the public perception is a selection of reality docu-series that take a long, hard look at real women serving out real sentences in real time. TLC aired several specials that explore different issues faced by female prisoners. “Babies Behind Bars” looked at prisoners taking childcare classes in preparation to one day take care of the children they gave birth to in prison. “Breaking Down the Bars,” helmed by Oprah’s OWN network, looks at daily prison life and focuses on therapy and rehabilitation. Producers even brought their own clinical psychologist to work with inmates.

Most recently, FOX’s hit “Empire” joined the ranks of shows portraying the impact of prison on American women. Its matriarch, Cookie (Taraji P. Henson), the powerhouse who brought her family to fame and fortune, developed her chops the hard way during her time in prison. Cookie represents the substantial number of black mothers who are separated from their children while serving prison sentences.

Cookie’s character highlights the impact of incarceration on mothers and the children they must leave behind while incarcerated–an issue that is reaching epidemic proportions. Not only does America currently have over 200,000 women serving sentences–the largest female prisoner population on earth–but about 56 percent report being parents. And today there are two African-American women behind bars for every white female inmate.

The US female inmate population has soared over 750% in the last three decades, nearly twice the rate of increase that men experienced. Today one out of every 100 black women in the U.S. is incarcerated, nearly three times the rate for women overall.

Not only do shows like “OITNB,” “Empire, “Bad Girls” and “Wentworth”” make female prisoners real to us, but they also highlight the additional societal issues that contribute to the epidemic of women behind bars in The U.S., U.K. and Australia. Economic status, race, and education remain factors for criminal activity and subsequent incarceration. In an age when we often congratulate ourselves on how far we’ve come, it’s important to be reminded that our enlightenment as a nation has not yet come to fruition.

Both the numbers and the images of women behind bars can feel overwhelming and discouraging, but the impact of media and audience interest in the plight of female prisoners is shedding a light on issues that may not otherwise be addressed. Several real issues have been explored in these series, including violence, abuse of solitary confinement, guards using their power to trade favors for sex and the rights of transgender inmates to receive prescribed hormone therapy while incarcerated.

Huffington Post blogger Sarah Pike declares:

The more we are exposed to the realities of life for female prisoners, the more we will be mobilized to work for fair treatment, reasonable sentencing and support for both prisoners and their families. If you’ve been inspired to make a difference for women prisoners, there are a variety of ways to become involved, including work with at-risk girls and women who may be able to avoid a life behind bars.

“Working as a tutor or mentor with at-risk girls or young women who have just become involved in the court system can help make an impact before it’s too late. Check with state organizations to find out how you can become involved in building self-esteem, cultivating social skills and improving educational performance. The Women’s Prison Association also offers a multitude of volunteer options that range from community involvement to active work with female prisoners and parolees.

“Thanks to recent television exposure, the national conversation about women in prison is louder and more active than ever before. While America is undeniably facing a challenge when it comes to the proliferation of female prisoners, there is hope that we will mobilize as a nation to curb the tide. Television may not be the answer, but it is certainly a catalyst for awareness, activism, and change.

The Oklahoma Department of Corrections recently released the results of its study revealing major differences in the mental health of male and female inmates. According to the data, nearly 60 percent of female inmates show signs of mental illness, about twice the percentage of male inmates. A total of 3,104 women and 25,620 men were in the corrections system at the time. Women also suffer disproportionately from depression — 64 percent versus 59 percent of men.

But the most striking difference occurs with trauma disorders. PTSD is the second most common mental illness among incarcerated women, with about one in five showing symptoms, or five times the rate for men. Nationally, women are

Photo by Susan Madden Lankford

twice as likely as men to suffer from PTSD because they tend to face more emotional and sexual abuse, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.

In prison, the effects can be worsened by separation from family or children, the stressful environment and failure to get consistent, quality treatment, other than psychotropic drugs, inmates and mental health experts said.

Kimberly Cummings, of Just the Beginning, a Tulsa-based nonprofit that helps women released from prison, says:

No fault in the prison system, that’s just what they’re trained to do: ‘Here, take this pill.’ Because it will numb them. It will numb that pain from trauma.

Women in prison also can easily get illicit drugs, which allow them to avoid confronting trauma issues. They’re good avoiders, and drug use itself is a good way to avoid.

A new challenge for prisoners is the decline in the number of therapy sessions in recent years. From 2012 to 2014, the average number of mental-health group therapy sessions per month in Oklahoma prisons fell by nearly 50 percent, to 176. The average number of offenders in those sessions per month also dropped. Corrections officials attributed the decline to a shortage of psychiatrists, which occurred even as the prison population increased to well above official capacity.

For years, Oklahoma has incarcerated more women per capita than any other state in the nation. Two prisons house female inmates: Dr. Eddie Warrior in Taft, with 965 inmates in late March, and Mabel Bassett Correctional Center in McLoud, with 1,206 inmates.

Eddie Warrior offers a substance-abuse program called Helping Women Recover that includes trauma therapy. Funded by the George Kaiser Family Foundation, the program has curricula called “Beyond Trauma” and “Beyond Violence” that are “trauma informed.”

Trauma disorders afflict women more than men for several reasons. Young girls and boys are equally vulnerable to trauma, but as they enter puberty, boys get bigger and stronger, so their likelihood of experiencing sexual trauma and abuse starts to decline. But the likelihood for women remains the same. Also, when men are victims of violence, it’s often perpetrated by strangers, such as in the military or a bar fight. But women’s trauma often is inflicted by someone close to them who probably expresses affection for them.

More than half of female victims of rape reported that at least one perpetrator was a current or former intimate partner, according to a 2010 national sexual violence survey by the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A lot of Women in Recovery participants have very complex trauma histories. They’re suffering from the effects of not just one traumatic event, but from a series of them, and that can play out over a lifetime. Sending nonviolent offenders to prison while they’re struggling with trauma-related mental illness will only worsen their symptoms. About 62 percent of female inmates showing signs of serious mental illness were nonviolent offenders, according to corrections data.

At Eddie Warrior, one inmate was in an open dorm with about 90 other women. She complained that loud noises and women talking over other women would trigger her severe anxiety. But today, with counseling and more control over her life, she feels a lot more stable and a lot more normal, than she did in prison.

Even as crime rates decline across the country, more than a million delinquency cases are still processed by our juvenile court system each year (1.1 million cases in 2011). In 59% of cases the child is found delinquent and most of those cases are settled by plea agreements, with the most common sentence being probation (64%), initiating months to years of court supervision, probation, detention and commitment.

Colorado’s Kim Dvorchak

Although juvenile court was designed to lead to better outcomes for children, the collateral consequences of juvenile adjudications have increased over time, imposing ever more barriers to education, employment, housing and the like.

Forty-eight years ago, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas declared in the landmark decision, In re Gault: “Under our Constitution, the condition of being a boy does not justify a kangaroo court.” Gault initiated an era of due process, determining that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution guarantees children the right to notice of charges, the right not to incriminate themselves, the right to confrontation and cross-examination — and perhaps most crucially, the right to counsel.

Kim Dvorchak, executive director of the Colorado Juvenile Defender Center (CJDC), declares:

As the 50th anniversary of In re Gault approaches in 2017, it’s past time to stop merely processing children and youth, and start protecting their due process rights.

“At the Colorado Juvenile Defender Center, our wake-up call followed an 18-month assessment by the National Juvenile Defender Center (NJDC), published in 2012 as ‘ Colorado: An Assessment of Access to Defense Counsel and Quality of Representation in Juvenile Delinquency Cases.’

“As advocates and defenders, we knew there were significant gaps in representation of youth at detention hearings, but what we didn’t realize was that for more than a decade, 45% of all delinquency cases statewide had no defense attorney present at any stage to defend children. We asked, ‘Why Don’t Kids Have Lawyers?’

To learn more, CJDC and NJDC embarked on a court-watching project, involving 20 visits to 16 courtrooms across 15 judicial districts, collecting information from more than 250 cases in Colorado.

For example, they observed the first-appearance plea-mills where children and parents sat in large groups, were handed plea paperwork and given a choice: They could “resolve” their cases then and there, or come back on another day to apply for a lawyer. The majority of parents observed were relieved to “get the case over with” and take a plea, without a full advisement of the child’s rights, review of the evidence against the child or investigation of the potential collateral consequences of taking a plea (or the obligations parents would be under going forward). Of course, far from getting the case over with, that was just Day 1 of many for these families.

As a result of CJDC’s and NJDC’s attention to the issue, the Colorado state legislative champions created a committee that met for six months to review timing of appointment of counsel, specialization of counsel, indigence guidelines and the public defender application process, waiver of counsel and collateral consequences. NJDC provided invaluable technical assistance throughout the process, and bringing in defenders from Louisiana, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Washington to demonstrate examples of juvenile defense specialization and leadership that could change the landscape in juvenile court.

For example, a pilot project in Washington state led by George Yeannakis of Team Child found that providing counsel to youth at first appearances in juvenile court led to a drop in prosecutor filings by 20%.

In its final report, Colorado’s legislative committee proposed comprehensive reforms that led to legislation enacted in 2014: mandating representation for every child in detention hearings; increasing notice to children and families on summonses and tickets of the right to counsel, and information on how to apply for a public defender before their first court date; requiring that every child who enters a guilty plea understands the collateral consequences of an adjudication; requiring reports from the judiciary (numbers of waivers, detention hearings releases) and the Office of the Public Defender and Alternate Defense Counsel (efforts to specialize, promote and support juvenile defenders) — information that will be submitted and reviewed for the first time by CO House and Senate judiciary committees this fall.

Dvorchak adds:

We’re proud of our progress on this issue, but it seems likely that young people in other states are also suffering from the same sort of benign neglect of their due process rights given to them by Gault. It turns out that although kids are guaranteed lawyers under the Constitution, we can’t assume that they get them. Not only is that unfair, it can have devastating consequences on the lives of youth and their families. Colorado is proof that advocates and defenders can work together to change that.

“It’s fitting, then, that this year youth justice reformers are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the founding of the National Juvenile Justice Network (NJJN), a national organization of 51 state-based advocacy groups like CJDC working in 39 states on behalf of youth in trouble with the law.

Every member of NJJN has endorsed nine principles of youth justice reform:

• Divert Youth from the Justice System
• Reduce Institutionalization
• Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Disparities
• Ensure Access to Quality Counsel
• Create a Range of Effective Community-Based Programs
• Recognize and Serve Youth with Specialized Needs
• Improve Aftercare and Reentry
• Engage Youth, Family, and Community
• Keep Youth Out of Adult Courts, Jails, and Prisons

In 2017, we’ll all be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision giving youth the right to counsel. It would be wonderful if, two years from now, we could look at the children and youth in our courts and say, yes, they really have got Gault.

Photo by USC News

A new report offers a four-pronged approach to address homelessness among female veterans. Researched by the USC Center for Innovation and Research on Veterans & Military Families and the Jonas Center for Nursing and Veterans Healthcare, the report is a pointed call to action for government organizations, non-governmental agencies and philanthropic entities to collaborate and provide resources to fill the gaps that make these women vulnerable to homelessness.

The four key actions are: a) initiate prevention and early intervention efforts; b) provide health care/child care support for children of female veterans; c) broaden definitions of “veteran” and “homeless,” thereby increasing eligibility for care and benefits and d) improve awareness of and dispel myths related to the issue.

Co-author Carl Castro, assistant professor and research director of the USC Center for Innovation and Research on Veterans, which is part of the USC School of Social Work, says:

The opportunity to end this grave problem is within reach through coordinated, collaborative and visionary actions.Though significant progress has been made, too many of our female veterans and their families continue to suffer from homelessness. We need a shift in approach — one that directs efforts and resources on preventing the problem. In this case, prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Approximately 34,000 female veterans are homeless, and many have children who share the burden. The authors estimate that Veterans Affairs currently spends approximately $136,000 in services for every homeless veteran — “nearly every penny of it after the veteran has become homeless. Very little attention is paid toward prevention. We need a paradigm shift,” Castro says.

Veterans Affairs, HUD and Michelle Obama have unveiled a plan to end veteran homelessness by the end of 2015, and although the numbers appear to be decreasing, that goal has not yet been attained.

According to the report, female veterans encounter a series of challenges that put them at risk for homelessness as they transition out of the military into civilian communities. These come atop physical and mental health issues they may have incurred during their military service. They may also have limited transferable career skills and difficulty adjusting to new self-identities in civilian culture.

An outgrowth of initiatives by the Jonas Center, specifically its Jonas Veterans Healthcare Program, the panel convened health experts, veterans, donors, nonprofits, journalists and businesses to explore solutions to this crucial national issue.

Darlene Curley, executive director of the Jonas Center, says:

The Jonas Center considers this to be a critical national issue that all of us, as individuals or as organizations with specific competencies and connections, have a responsibility to address. We must protect the women who once protected us. More than a year ago, as we considered appropriate roles for the Jonas Center, it became clear we would be most effective in bringing together various experts who could spur action. This report offers insights gleaned from that first, rich discussion.

Report co-author Anthony Hassan, clinical professor and director of the USC Center for Innovation and Research on Veterans, says:

Homeless female veterans’ challenges are on a continuum of need—and the solution lies in effective engagements at the front end of this continuum. This requires a change in the current system, which provides resources after the individual is already homeless.

Post-military transition milestones present opportunities for a prevention strategy. The four-pronged approach begins with establishing a “system of prevention” during the transition from military service that clearly identifies those at risk and coordinates among multiple agencies to assist in bridging the move from military to civilian life. Specific recommendations include:

1) Mandate a thorough assessment of each separating service member’s health status.
2) Ensure permanent housing, particularly for those with children.
3) Make a “hard” job offer a primary objective.
4) Assess each departing service member’s social support network to identify gaps.
5) Identify those who are high-risk, and continuously evaluate their reintegration status for two to three years following their exit from military service, and
6) Consider transition compensation to offset any differential from military compensation.

The report also strongly urges ensuring that female service members with children have adequate resources for essential needs, including health care and education.

Further recommendations include:

7) Offer life-skills coaching during the transition phase and following separation from the military.
8) Provide the VA the authority to help meet the health care needs of veterans’ children, either through direct or coordinated care.
9) Identify child-care support organizations, especially for single mothers.
10) Monitor veterans’ children to assess possible long-term health and behavioral effects of their parents’ service-related trauma and/or homelessness.

Further, because support for homeless female veterans is often restricted due to various policies (some based on law and others not), the authors advocate for changing the definitions of “veteran” and “homeless”, as both are used to determine eligibility for care and benefits. The report also calls for safer housing provided to this population and for the VA to establish female-focused heath/support centers where they can easily access benefits from the VA, other federal and state agencies, veteran service organizations and nonprofits.

Finally, the report advises improving national awareness of the issue and addressing gaps in research, such as: a) conduct national, state and local campaigns to dispel myths of homelessness; b) improve the identification and treatment of female service members suffering from sexual trauma; c) execute intervention studies and local community needs assessments to identify best housing practices, help target prevention/early intervention efforts, etc.; d) improve the accuracy of veteran homeless counts and include children in these counts and e) help female veterans become more comfortable identifying themselves as veterans so that they can access needed benefits.

Castro concludes:

These recommendations are not intended to be ‘take it or leave it.’ One or all may be pursued, and we believe that each stands on its own merit. But most importantly, we will never end homelessness until we focus on prevention, and that must begin while the service member is still on active duty.

Finally, this is not an exhaustive list, and we hope that others will identify more innovative approaches toward ending female veteran homelessness.

Photo by Susan Madden Lankford

Criminal defendants with mental illness who commit minor crimes are too often ending up behind bars, according to Connecticut defense attorneys, who say there are not enough mental health services or inpatient beds available for them. According to a report by the Virginia-based Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC), 95% of the U.S. public psychiatric beds available in 1955 were no longer available by 2005. Between 1995 and 2013, the number of inpatient psychiatric beds, at both public and private hospitals in the U.S. decreased 33.4%, from 160,645 to 107,055.

In a related issue, mental health services providers and advocates also worry the $160 million in cuts in the budget now under discussion in the legislature will result in an increase in the arrest of people with mental illness.

Supervisory Assistant Public Defender Bevin Salmon, finds it is frustrating to see his mentally ill clients incarcerated because there aren’t enough treatment spots for them:

I’ve been doing this for about 13 years, and it has been a constant problem. Having more treatment options in the community is a good thing, instead of warehousing them in jail. Judges can be reluctant to release an individual with mental health issues without treatment, even if the charge is minor. I wish there was more housing for defendants with mental illness, because now there is a waiting list, so people end up in prison if no relatives can take them.

This problem, across the country, is severe with both mentally challenged men and women. Today, about two-thirds of incarcerated females, sentenced or unsentenced, have a serious mental illness.

Mary Kate Mason, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, said the agency serves 110,000 people a year and provides services ranging from community-based, outpatient services to partial hospitalization to inpatient care. She reports:

As many hospitals have closed, community services have improved to help people living there. We have a huge range of services that are available that individuals can have access to if needed. The whole system has made a change—we know we don’t need to keep people hospitalized.

But Kathryn Cohen, legislative and policy counsel and Connecticut advocate with TAC, said community psychiatric care exists for fewer than half the patients who need it. According to Cohen, the number of individuals with serious mental illness in prisons and jails now exceeds the number in state psychiatric hospitals by tenfold:

Prisons are becoming our de facto psychiatric hospitals. Prison and jail officials are asked to assume responsibility for the nation’s most serious mentally ill individuals, despite the fact that the officials did not sign up to do this job, are not trained to do it and face severe legal restrictions in their ability to provide treatment for such individuals. And yet are held responsible when things go wrong, as they inevitably do under such circumstances. The solution, is to maintain a functioning public mental health treatment system so that men and women suffering from severe mental illness do not end up in prison.

TAC also advocates for jail diversion programs and the use of court-ordered outpatient treatment to support at-risk individuals so they can live successfully in the community.

Panhandlers are a common example of chronic low-level offenders who often suffer from mental illness. They can prompt complaints to police from merchants, resulting in arrest. But then they often get out and return to street begging.

It would be beneficial for prosecutors to have more knowledge up-front about the defendant and alternatives to incarceration available for them. Prosecutors may then decide not to prosecute them, or to release them and delay their court case until they have successfully been referred to a program.

Michael Lawlor, Undersecretary for Criminal Justice Policy and Planning at the CT Office of Policy and Management, says:

Putting non-violent, low-risk people in prison will make it worse. The vast majority of these people are in jail for a short period of time, one to three months. Incarcerating them is expensive because of their health issues. It is a big demand on correctional staff, and there is no real public safety value to it. They may be more of a nuisance than a danger. In this category, there are a lot of veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder who are homeless. One goals is to give police other options, rather than just arresting the mentally ill individuals.

He adds:

At the moment there are not enough services for police to refer people to. We are in a budget crisis. We are spending a lot of money providing healthcare to people in jail, and we could take the same money and provide more services in the community.

Some, but not all, police departments have officers undergo crisis intervention-team training to learn how to deal with nonviolent mentally ill individuals. This is more common in the Connecticut’s larger cities,

Some police are specially trained to deal with the mentally ill who are arrested for very minor crimes. But they have to have a network of community-based treatment centers to take them to, rather than arresting them, so they will be more likely to do so . One of the reasons the CT prison population currently is down is because police are taking more advantage of that option than they were before.

In New Haven, police Capt. Holly Wasilewski said the city Police Department has 116 officers who have undergone 40-hour crisis-intervention training, and the goal is to have all New Haven officers get it. Participants learn about mental illness, the mental health system, suicide assessment and prevention and how to de-escalate a situation:

It expands on what the officers learn at the academy. The more officers we have trained, the better. Sometimes people aren’t oriented and don’t know where they are, so we don’t arrest them if they aren’t harming anyone.

Louise Pyers, criminal justice project director with the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Connecticut, based in Hartford, believes that there are some very good services available, but individuals can often end up in the criminal justice system if they don’t know about them or lack transportation to them. “People are left to their own devices to try to find services and get connected,” Pyers said. “You need assistance and guidance to find what is out there.”

Currently, the CT legislature is considering a bill that would establish a pilot program to serve courts in New Haven, New London and Norwich to identify and track the mentally ill, along with homeless and addicted individuals entering the criminal justice system. The idea behind it is to get these individuals treatment and help as an alternative to incarceration and to prevent future arrests. The initiative is already in place in New London, but the proposal builds on that and calls for a formal assessment of its effectiveness.

Today a jail diversion program is active in all Superior Courts. Program staff evaluate individuals with mental illness and develop a recommended treatment program in lieu of incarceration for a judge’s consideration.

A growing body of research demonstrates that for many juvenile offenders, lengthy out-of-home placements in secure corrections or other residential facilities fail to produce better outcomes than alternative sanctions.–and in certain instances, they can be counterproductive. Seeking to reduce recidivism and achieve better returns on their juvenile justice spending, several states have recently enacted laws that limit which youth can be committed to these facilities and moderates the length of time they can spend there.

Photo by Susan Madden Lankford

These changes prioritize the use of costly facilities and intensive programming for serious offenders who present a higher risk of re-offending, while supporting effective community-based programs for others.

In recent years, seven states have passed laws excluding certain juveniles from being placed in state custody, reflecting a growing recognition of the steep cost and low public safety return of confining juveniles who commit lower-level offenses in residential facilities. Three states also have modified the length of time juveniles spend in custody. Because research shows little to no recidivism reduction from extended stays for many offenders, a handful of states have adopted mechanisms to evaluate youth placements and shorten them when appropriate.

1) In 2014, Hawaii banned commitment to the state’s youth correctional facility for misdemeanor offenses.
2) Kentucky adopted reforms in 2014 that prohibit most misdemeanor offenders and Class D felons—the least serious class—from commitment to the Department of Juvenile Justice.
3) Georgia passed legislation in 2013 to prohibit residential commitment for all “status offenses,” such as skipping school or running away, and for misdemeanor offenders, except those with four prior adjudications, including at least one felony.
4) In 2011, Florida banned state commitment for misdemeanors, with certain exceptions for youth with prior delinquency and those at high risk of re-offending.
5) In 2009, Mississippi prohibited commitment to the state training school for any juvenile offender adjudicated as delinquent for a nonviolent felony or with fewer than three misdemeanors.
6) In 2007, California banned state commitment for all low-level and nonviolent offenses.
7) As part of a complete overhaul of its juvenile corrections system in 2007, Texas barred commitments to secure facilities for misdemeanor offenses.

Several other states, including Ohio and Virginia, took steps to remove misdemeanor offenders from state commitment in the 1980s and 1990s.

Moderating length of stay:
1) In 2014, Kentucky limited the amount of time a juvenile may be held by the Department of Juvenile Justice in out-of-home placement for treatment, and the total amount of time a youth may be committed or under court supervision.
2) In 2013, Georgia eliminated the mandatory minimum sentence for certain felony offenses and reduced the maximum term for less serious felony offenses from five years to 18 months.
3) In 2011, Ohio expanded judicial discretion in release decisions for committed youth. Legislation authorized the courts to release from the Department of Youth Services offenders serving mandatory sentences once certain minimum terms are met.

In general, research has found that juvenile incarceration fails to reduce recidivism:

Meta-analyses—studies that combine the results of multiple evaluations—suggest that placement in correctional facilities does not lower the likelihood of juvenile reoffending and may, in fact, increase it in some cases. One longitudinal study of serious adolescent offenders in Maricopa County, Arizona, and Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, found that after matching youth offenders on 66 factors, including demographics and criminal history, those in placement fared no better in terms of recidivism than those on probation. A separate analysis of the same data found that youth who reported the lowest levels of offending before being placed were more likely to re-offend following institutional stays.

In Texas, a recent study found that youth in community-based treatment, activity, and surveillance programs had lower rearrest rates than those with similar criminal histories and demographic characteristics who were released from state facilities. An examination of long-term recidivism and education outcomes in Cook County, Illinois, found that juveniles who experienced confinement were more likely to drop out of high school and to be incarcerated as adults than youth offenders who were not incarcerated

An evaluation of Ohio’s Reasoned and Equitable Community and Local Alternatives to the Incarceration of Minors program—a state initiative to supervise youth offenders in the community rather than placing them in institutions—found that the recidivism rate for low- (33% vs 10%) and moderate-risk juveniles (52% vs 21%) in facilities was at least twice that of comparable youth under supervision or in programs in their communities.

In a study of low-risk juvenile offenders, the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice reported that diversion programs demonstrated lower recidivism rates compared with more restrictive options and that out-of-home placement was associated with the highest recidivism rates.

One meta-analysis combining the results of juvenile and adult studies found that longer sentences were associated with a small increase in recidivism. The Arizona and Pennsylvania longitudinal study referenced above reported that longer periods of confinement did not reduce recidivism in most cases.

An Ohio study found that, after controlling for juveniles’ demographics and risk levels, those placed in state facilities for longer periods had higher rates of re-incarceration than did those held for shorter periods.

Factors such as the risk levels of juveniles, the characteristics of programs and the quality of their implementation are key determinants in reducing recidivism, regardless of whether treatment is delivered in institutions or in the community.

High recidivism rates for juveniles released from out-of-home placements have prompted policymakers in several states to ask if the price tag is justified given the results. Though institutional placements vary substantially in cost, they are generally the most expensive options available for sanctioning young offenders. States spend anywhere from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to hold a single juvenile offender in a corrections or other residential facility. The three-year outcomes in four states suggest a poor return on public investments:

Nearly two-thirds of Georgia’s $300 million budget for the Department of Juvenile Justice was directed in 2013 to out-of-home facilities, including secure youth development campuses where housing an offender cost $91,126 annually. Sixty-five percent of juveniles released from these facilities in 2007 were re-adjudicated or convicted as adults within three years.

The cost of placing an offender at the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility was $199,329 in 2013, and 3 in 4 youth released in 2005–07 were re-adjudicated or convicted within three years.

The average per-bed cost for Virginia’s six juvenile correctional centers was $85,549 in 2012, and 45% of offenders released in fiscal year 2008 were recommitted or incarcerated within three years. In California, where the average annual cost of housing a juvenile offender in a state Department of Juvenile Justice facility was $179,400 in 2012, 54% of juvenile offenders released from these facilities in fiscal 2007 and 2008 were returned to custody in a state-level juvenile or criminal facility within three years. And in South Carolina, a secure bed costs 32.8 times more than intense probation.