Archive for Humane Exposures

| November 13, 2012
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AB-109 and rising crime – Is there a correlation?

Sacramento Police Department

Sacramento Police Department (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A little over a year ago Gov. Jerry Brown’s AB-109 began the process of reducing the state’s prison population by 33,000 before June of 2014.

Under the bill, triple-non — non-violent, non-serious, non-sexual — offenders would become the responsibility of the counties, not the state, with a large number of them returning to the streets of California.

In that time crime has been rising, and many fingers are pointed at AB-109 as the cause. Unfortunately there was no language in the legislation dictating how to asses the results. While the counties that have accepted assistance of a technical nature from the state are required to report, there are no standards of procedures for that reporting: a truly stunning oversight.

Heather Gilligan of The Sacramento Bee is one of the few journalists sharing police data on the subject. This excerpt provides the numbers she came up with.

“It’s diminishing public safety,” said Lynne Brown, director of Advocates for Public Safety, a group that represents law enforcement officers who want to repeal AB109.

Republican legislators agree, and they have called for a special session of the Legislature to change or kill the law. They say that crime has increased in Sacramento, Stockton, Oakland and Los Angeles, according to preliminary numbers from police departments.

There have been many incidents in the news involving crime perpetrated by released inmates. One particularly violent example is that of parolee Raoul Leyva. Raoul allegedly beat 20-year-old Brandy Marie Arreola into a coma last April. The beating occurred not long after he had been sentenced to jail for 100 days for parole violations but had been released after two days due to overcrowding. In light of the numerous incidents it behooves us to take a look at the situation in greater detail.

Ms. Gilligan continues:

But police data actually show a mixed picture.

In Sacramento, Part I crimes, those that are reported to the FBI and eventually become the uniform crime rate for a city, are up by 8.1 percent this year compared with the same period in 2011. Homicides, however, decreased by 18.5 percent, according to Sacramento Police Department crime data.

Violent crime is currently down in Los Angeles by 7 percent and property crime is the same year-to-date. In Oakland, Part I crimes have increased by 20 percent, according to the Oakland Police Department. Some increases – like those for rape (up 21 percent) and robbery (up 20 percent) – are striking. Part II crimes – including minor assault, drug possession, vandalism and fraud – have decreased by 10 percent.

In Stockton, there have been 51 reported homicides this year – six more than in the same period last year, according to Stockton police spokesman Joseph Silva.

“Clearly, what’s happened with (AB109) is that criminals learn there are no consequences,” said Assemblyman Bill  Berryhill, a Republican whose San Joaquin County district includes Stockton and Modesto.

But determining the effect of a single policy on crime rates is difficult, said Joan Petersilia, professor of law at Stanford University and co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center.

No matter how you slice it, the issue is a complex one. The lack of any procedure for collecting data on how this influx of former inmates will impact the communities involved is troubling, to say the least. The fuzziness on details also means that most communities are forging their own paths when it comes to their methodology in handling the realignment.

Los Angeles and San Francisco are great examples of this in action. In LA, the jail population is increasing, while in San Francisco they are reducing theirs by keeping the focus where it should be: on rehabilitation.

We need more hard data, and we should have had a plan in place before releasing these inmates. Without proper support – therapy, drug rehab, job training, etc. – the chances are that many will offend again.

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Category: California, Criminal Justice, Humane Exposures | Tags: , , , , , , , ,
| November 4, 2012
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Tom Stone TV Interview on Comcast (6/28/07)

A wonderful TV interview with doumentarian Tom Stone.

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| October 25, 2012
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One Less Good Influence – Aspiring Filmmaker Gunned Down in New Orleans

Notice: Today’s post is a bit more personal than most as it occurred just across town from me and involves people I know.

The story begins a year before Hurricane Katrina when Joshua Short was the subject of a critically acclaimed documentary about the relationship between political corruption, our failing schools, and the plague of youth gun violence that have been the pernicious back beat to life in New Orleans for much of it’s history. Let’s start with the trailer for Left Behind; be warned that the language is raw and unedited (containing at least one F-bomb and Not Safe For Work).

Hurricane Katrina arrived in mid-filming for the documentary, and to their credit the filmmakers, my old friend and colleague Jason Berry and Vincent Morelli, forged ahead giving an unprecedented view of our at-risk population when under historic levels of stress.

Joshua and his brother, two of the main subjects of the film were living together in an apartment, putting themselves through school, parents long gone from the equation, when it was in production. The young man was inspired with a love of the medium and has since worked for Berry on several occasions. This last Spring he assisted Berry in recording an outdoor Jimmy Buffet concert during the NCAA Men’s Final Four basketball championships.

He was bettering himself, trying to be one of the survivors to claw his way out out of the morass of poverty and disfunction that was his ecosystem. This year, at the age of 25, he had already become that “one good enough adult” that we talk about here on the blog: the one adult who can make a profound difference in the life of a child. He tutored disadvantaged youth in his neighborhood and taught them basketball.

As a matter of fact, according to his brother, he was visiting with one of his mentees when flying lead ended his life. Berry’s words on his blog, American Zombie, are far more eloquent than anything I could say on the subject:

Yesterday, this city…you, me….we are all responsible…took the life of one of its brightest.  Joshua was a young man that gave me, and the people in his life, hope.  In spite of the horrendous circumstances he was born into, he continually found a way to rise above it all and strived to make better himself and the people he loved.  The challenges he faced in his life, as a child, would make most adults crack but he somehow managed to rise above it all.  The world of sh*t this city threw at him from the cradle on didn’t harden him or destroy his soul like so many other kids in his circumstances.  His hope and kindness humbled me to the point where whenever I, as a 40 year-old adult, would begin to feel sorry for myself, I would think about what Joshua had been through and how ridiculously privileged my own life really is.  If he could remain optimistic, I have no business wallowing in self-pity.

Here is an excerpt from NOLA.com’s coverage, including more comments from Berry:

Authorities haven’t publicly discussed exactly what unfolded when Short was shot about 10:40 p.m. on Tuesday. Jonathan said his brother had gone to the Night Out Against Crime gathering to greet friends and visit the youth he was mentoring. Jonathan doesn’t believe the deadly gunfire was meant for either his twin or his friend.

Berry lamented that Joshua Short became the second student profiled in “Left Behind” to fall victim to shooting violence in New Orleans. The first, Mario Pleasant, survived when he was attacked in the middle of filming the documentary.

“For an act of violence like this to take Joshua’s life, it makes me very angry,” Berry said. “I’m fed up with it. The entire point of the documentary, for me, was (to show) the way we are treating our children is leading to this epidemic of violence. I don’t see it getting any better. I don’t see any changes being made.”

That is why everyone needs to develop an interest in these matters. While progress is being made in many places, it is hard to see any here in the Crescent City. This is a cautionary tale about the consequences of neglecting our children and their future. Berry’s documentary showed the complex interrelation between education, lack of opportunity, and juvenile crime in a visceral fashion. Six years later our inattention to those matters has claimed another victim.

Why is it vital to push for change? Because New Orleans is an example of just how bad it can become everywhere if we don’t. This has nothing to do with politics; it has to do with wasted futures and blood on our streets, lives cut short and public money wasted. If your stance is conservative, you should support this because it is the path of fiscal savings and responsibility. If you are liberal, then compassion for the children should guide you along the same path.

I’ve been back in New Orleans for just under a year now, and once more I have read the headlines to learn someone I know was shot in the streets. I completely understand Jason’s depression and fatigue; it often feels like we are treading water at best. Still, there is no way in good conscience to sit on the sidelines while this is the norm anywhere in the United States.

It really is more expensive to do nothing.

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| October 16, 2012
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Palm Springs Tackles Homeless Issues – KMIR-TV

See on Scoop.it – Homeless Issues: Humane Exposures

Palm Springs Tackles Homeless IssuesKMIR-TVBane and Tom both stopped by the community meeting where people living in Palm Springs voiced their concerns about the lack of resources and crime associated with homelessness.
See on www.kmir6.com

Category: Humane Exposures |
| October 9, 2012
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Live Broadcast With The National Juvenile Justice Network!

Today at  11 am PST / 1 pm CST / 2 pm EST we will be joined by several of the driving forces behind the National Juvenile Justice Network. We will be discussing the recent  release of an amazing resource they have compiled: Advances in Juvenile Justice Reform: 2009-2011, a compendium of youth justice reforms from across the country.

Our panel for the day will be comprised of the following people:

Abby Anderson is executive director of the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance, an advocacy organization that consistently wins major victories for at-risk youth. She has served as co-chair of the Executive Committee of the National Juvenile Justice Network since 2007 and was formerly on the Executive Board of the Coalition for Juvenile Justice. In naming her to its prestigious “40 Under 40” list, Connecticut Magazine said: “She has reframed  juvenile justice as a mainstream issue by stressing the savings achieved by getting timely services to kids before their behavior becomes a public-safety concern.”

Jim Moeser is the Deputy Director of the Wisconsin Council on Children & Families, a multi-issue state advocacy organization promoting the safety, health, and economic stability of Wisconsin’s children and families. Jim is currently a member of the Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice for OJJDP. He co-chairs the Executive Committee of the National Juvenile Justice Network.

Sarah Bryer, NJJN’s Director, has been working in the juvenile and criminal justice fields for more than twenty years. Prior to joining NJJN, she was the Director of Policy and Planning at the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services (CASES), an alternative-to-incarceration program serving more than 10,000 misdemeanor and felony-level, court-involved youth and adults per year. Before that, she was Manager of Youth Programs at the Center for Court Innovation and has been a victim-offender mediator for court-involved youth in California.

Benjamin Chambers has been writing professionally for over 20 years, and has over 10 years of experience in the field of juvenile justice. Between 2000 and 2007, he worked for the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice in Portland, Oregon, where he was involved in improving youth drug treatment and served on the management team. Between 2008 and 2011, he launched and edited the Reclaiming Futures blog and social media channels, which he built into premier venues for juvenile justice news and resources.

George “Loki” Williams Our own Humane Exposures blogger will be moderating the discussion. Loki has blogged for clients including the National Association of Broadcasters and Kaiser Permanente as well as the Webby Award-winning KatrinaMedia.com. He is one of the organizers of the Rising Tide Conference in New Orleans, and his work has been seen or written about in The New York Times, The BBC, The New Yorker’s New Orleans Journal, and NOLA.com, among others.

 

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Category: Criminal Justice, Humane Exposures, Juvenile Justice, Prison Reform | Tags: , , , , , , ,
| October 6, 2012
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Hangout On Air with the National Juvenile Justice Network!

HangoutWe are proud to announce a new Humane Exposures Hangout! On October 9 at  11 am PST / 1 pm CST / 2 pm EST we will be joined by several of the driving forces behind the National Juvenile Justice Network. We will be discussing the recent  release of an amazing resource they have compiled: Advances in Juvenile Justice Reform: 2009-2011, a compendium of youth justice reforms from across the country. This is an elegantly crafted document that provides capsule summaries of the changes in juvenile justice organized by topic area, state, and year. It covers a broad array of significant new laws, administrative rule and practice changes, positive court decisions, and promising commissions and studies.

I would cite this as a useful resource for advocates, juvenile justice system employees, legislators, and those who simply wish to become more informed on the subject. In it you can learn about recent reforms in other states, find tips on connecting with allies and other advocates, generating ideas for change, and ways in which to educate policymakers or journalists.
Our panel for the day will be comprised of the following people:

Abby Anderson is executive director of the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance, an advocacy organization that consistently wins major victories for at-risk youth. She has served as co-chair of the Executive Committee of the National Juvenile Justice Network since 2007 and was formerly on the Executive Board of the Coalition for Juvenile Justice. In naming her to its prestigious “40 Under 40” list, Connecticut Magazine said: “She has reframed  juvenile justice as a mainstream issue by stressing the savings achieved by getting timely services to kids before their behavior becomes a public-safety concern.”

Jim Moeser is the Deputy Director of the Wisconsin Council on Children & Families, a multi-issue state advocacy organization promoting the safety, health, and economic stability of Wisconsin’s children and families. Jim is currently a member of the Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice for OJJDP. He co-chairs the Executive Committee of the National Juvenile Justice Network.

Sarah Bryer, NJJN’s Director, has been working in the juvenile and criminal justice fields for more than twenty years. Prior to joining NJJN, she was the Director of Policy and Planning at the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services (CASES), an alternative-to-incarceration program serving more than 10,000 misdemeanor and felony-level, court-involved youth and adults per year. Before that, she was Manager of Youth Programs at the Center for Court Innovation and has been a victim-offender mediator for court-involved youth in California.

Benjamin Chambers has been writing professionally for over 20 years, and has over 10 years of experience in the field of juvenile justice. Between 2000 and 2007, he worked for the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice in Portland, Oregon, where he was involved in improving youth drug treatment and served on the management team. Between 2008 and 2011, he launched and edited the Reclaiming Futures blog and social media channels, which he built into premier venues for juvenile justice news and resources.

George “Loki” Williams Our own Humane Exposures blogger will be moderating the discussion. Loki has blogged for clients including the National Association of Broadcasters and Kaiser Permanente as well as the Webby Award-winning KatrinaMedia.com. He is one of the organizers of the Rising Tide Conference in New Orleans, and his work has been seen or written about in The New York Times, The BBC, The New Yorker’s New Orleans Journal, and NOLA.com, among others.

Tune in Tuesday on our Google+ Page! See you there!

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Category: Humane Exposures, Interview, Juvenile Justice, Legislation | Tags: , , , , , ,
| September 27, 2012
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Youth Justice Awareness Month is Coming

Contribute to National Youth Justice Awareness Month

According to 2009 federal numbers there are roughly 7,500 kids under 18 years old residing in adult jails; approximately a third of those are in adult prisons. These numbers demand reaction, and October is the month for it.

You see, October is National Youth Justice Awareness month. The purpose is to  raise awareness about youth prosecuted in the adult criminal justice system. It was started by Tracy McClard, a parent who lost her child to suicide while he was incarcerated in an adult facility in Missouri.

McClard started campaign in 2008 with a 5k run/walk fundraiser dedicated to Jonathan, her son who hanged himself three days after his 17th birthday rather than face three decades in an adult prison.

Her assertion is that Jonathan would still be alive today if he had been put into the Missouri Dual Jurisdiction Program. This residential-style program  provides both counseling and educational services to juvenile inmates in a setting that provides additional support by being open to family visits. These are all characteristics that the adult facilities lack.

On the good side the preponderance of data that has come to light in these past few years supports her assertions. Public awareness both of the plight of those lost in the system and the financial savings of embracing more effective programs is starting to make a difference.

According to Maggie Lee over at the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange:

[Liz] Ryan [president and CEO of the Campaign for Youth Justice] is optimistic that both Democratic- and Republican-led states, despite tight budgets, will continue reforms. ‘Recidivism research is having an effect,’ she said, pointing to studies that say putting children through adult courts reduces reoffending. Both blue and red states are beginning to channel more youth away from adult incarceration.

In December, McClard and other activists and some state legislators will re-file a bill that proposes to remove barriers to the Dual Jurisdiction program.

McClard said that since her first run, ‘things are changing, people are becoming more aware … Conversations are starting, people are changing.’

‘The way we’re doing it now is so wrong and so horrendous we cannot keep doing it,’ she said. Kids are ‘so amenable to rehabilitation if you give them what they need.’

The entire month of October is dedicated to awareness of these issues. If you want to get involved or start an associated event in your area, go take a look at the Campaign for Youth Justice website, where a large array of resources is available including an event-planning toolkit, a film-screening budget sheet, and more.

If you do get an event going and are considering screening a film I’d like to close by suggesting our own documentary, It’s More Expensive to Do Nothing. You will never forget the view inside the penal system that it provides.

Category: Humane Exposures |
| September 25, 2012
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It’s More Expensive To Do Nothing About Homelessness in Canada

There is a very interesting study that was recently released in Canada. The findings may provide some insight into the issues of homelessness we face here in the US.

The substantive report (150 pages of it) analyzed the costs of homelessness, including oft-forgotten peripherals like emergency medical expenses and policing. It then compared them to the cost of implementing services and programs designed to combat the problem.

Via The Vancouver Sun:

The estimated annual cost of $55,000 per homeless person takes into consideration the high risk of infectious diseases. The study says some individuals can be slow to accept treatment because they don’t recognize their mental illness, and may circulate through the court system because of a need to get drugs and food.

The study argues that if housing and support were offered to these people, it would cost the system much less – just $37,000 a year.

The report calculated that a capital investment of $784 million is needed to provide adequate housing to the 11,750 homeless people, and a further $148 million per year is required for housing-related support services.

But the study argues that after removing what the province is paying for health care, jail and shelters, and by spreading the capital costs out over several years, taxpayers could ultimately stand to save nearly $33 million annually.

The interesting part is how well these findings complement the research already done on juvenile incarceration and the incarceration of women. In our documentary, It’s More Expensive to Do Nothing, we examined the fiscal and societal gains that can be attained by implementing rehabilitative programs. They are substantive and invite and obvious parallel to the Canadian study’s findings on homelessness.

Another common thread between the two subjects is the recurrence of mental illness and substance abuse as part of the equation. These factors, if not addressed, tend to spiral out of control. Those subject to them can find themselves on a downward path that can be counteracted with the correct therapy and support programs. (On a personal note I know two people who used programs like that to get a grip on things while fighting those battles. They are now well-respected professionals in our community.)

I don’t know of any studies of this nature going on stateside, but it might be worthwhile to encourage it. Our own look at similar fiscal waste, and the human impact it has, was presented in the documentary It’s More Expensive to Do Nothing.

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| September 13, 2012
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Humane Exposures on Flickr!

humaneexposures. Get yours at bighugelabs.com

Greetings readers! I am very happy to announce that we have now carved out a foothold on Flickr, one of the oldest photo-sharing platforms online.

Not only will we be sharing photos of our own, but you will see some of Susan Madden Lankford’s images from our trilogy of books, and you will also get to share your own.

Today we are launching two new photo communities:

We would like to encourage any of our readers who use Flickr to join these groups and share their own images on the topics.
If we are going to effect any sort of substantive change in our nation’s current, fiscally irresponsible approach to incarceration we need to shine a spotlight on the problem. By sharing images from the streets we can hopefully make people more aware of the human faces they display.
The same holds true for our prison system, particularly as applies to the women and children detained within. After all, as US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once stated, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”
We hope you will join us, and if you know of other photographers examining these issues, please steer them our way!
Category: Humane Exposures |
| September 11, 2012
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Not since the Great Depression has New York City had 20,000 children sleeping homeless

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Image by JillK1 on Flickr

The ranks of the homeless in New York City are swelling, and with them the number of homeless children. Life on the streets of the Big Apple is tough enough to drive adults to despair; how much more so a child?

Sometimes life in a homeless shelter is more than a 14-year-old can handle.

Francheska Luciano, who is among a growing number of homeless children in the city, said living in a shelter was “like living in hell.”

“I’m tired of this,” she said Friday while sitting on a curb outside a shelter intake center in the Bronx with her mother and little sisters. “It’s a nightmare every day.”

Those are the lead paragraphs in the recent The New York Daily News coverage of the staggering rise in homeless numbers. The reason they start off their reporting that way is because the most unsettling number their research unearthed was just how many kids sleep in shelters or with no roof at all.

The number of children in the city’s shelters hit 19,000 last week, the most recent city data available show.

‘Not since the grim days of the Great Depression has New York City had 20,000 children sleeping homeless each night,’ said Patrick Markee, senior policy analyst with the Coalition for the Homeless.

This news follows the well-publicized statement last August by Mayor Bloomberg who opined that New York City shelters offer a “much more pleasurable experience than they ever had before.” The implication that people are subject to overcrowding because they do not want to leave the shelter system is hard to avoid – specially in contrast to stories like the recent New York Times profile on a nine-year-old girl living in a Manhattan homeless shelter.

No matter how you parse it, the bottom line is that almost 20,000 children are experiencing their early lives on the streets of the city.

How humane is it to continue to accept and enable homelessness in America – especially when the homeless in question are children.

Category: Humane Exposures |
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