Tag Archive for Prison

| August 24, 2010
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“Cash for Kids” Scandal Fuels Changes in PA Juvenille Court System

My trusty gavelPennsylvania has had its woes when it comes to its juvenile justice system. One of the worst and highest profile problems it has suffered was the much publicized “Cash for Kids” scandal. Here is a condensed rundown via Wikipedia, in case you missed it on the news:

[Judge Mark] Ciavarella pled guilty on February 13, 2009, pursuant to a plea agreement, to federal charges of honest services fraud, wire fraud and tax evasion in connection with receiving $2.6 million in kickbacks from Robert Powell and Robert Mericle, the co-owner and builder respectively, of two private, for-profit juvenile facilities. More specifically, the crimes charged were: conspiracy to deprive the public of the ‘intangible right of honest services,’ or corruption, and conspiracy to defraud the United States by failing to report income to the Internal Revenue Service. Ciavarella tendered his resignation to Governor Ed Rendell on January 23, 2009, prior to official publication of the charges.

What we would like to look at today is the repercussions of the scandal. In the aftermath of this hijacking of the justice system, the state of Pennsylvania is scrutinizing its handling of juvenile cases. The 10-year run of harsh sentences and unconstitutional rulings has inspired the formation of a task force composed of state advocates and county officials. Its aim? To overhaul the PA juvenile court system.

Michael Sisak, a staff writer for The Standard Speaker, has penned a nice article about the latest efforts. He writes:

Juveniles no longer appear in court without an attorney. Prosecutors, not court employees in the juvenile probation office, determine criminal charges. And infractions on school campuses are no longer painted with the same broad brush of ‘zero tolerance’ that guaranteed placement at a juvenile detention facility for even the most minor offenses.

‘Every case is going to be looked at individually, and those cases that do come through the system are going to be treated on an individual basis,’ District Attorney Jackie Musto Carroll said Wednesday, after a two-hour meeting with the task force at King’s College in Wilkes-Barre.

Sisak’s article is well worth the read, as he examines the steps being taken in detail. Importantly, he looks at both the pros and the cons to provide a balanced picture of the state of affairs. Among other things, he notes the slightly frosty reception of the local school administrators on the subject of ending “zero tolerance.” Their stated position in a meeting with the members of the Juvenile Justice Victim Response Task Force was that the change in policy engender a perception of weakness in their response to school violence.

What do you think? Can Pennsylvania pick up the pieces of its juvenile justice system? Is it on the right track in the approach it is taking to doing so? Let us know, we love comments!

Source: “Juvenile system changes take hold,” StandardSpeaker.com, 08/18/10
Image by steakpinball, used under its Creative Commons license.
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Category: Humane Exposures, Juvenile Justice, Prison, Prison Reform | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
| August 23, 2010
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Digital Prisoner Tracking: Orwellian Surveillance or a Step Forward?

Maggots in my Sweet Potatoes: Women Doing TimeOne of the persistent issues in the American penal system is that it is massively overcrowded. A plethora of reasons for this abounds, as a simple Google search will show. The solutions have been in shorter supply.

Graeme Wood, a contributing editor for The Atlantic magazine, has a very interesting column in the September issue (available to us now courtesy of the magazine’s website). In it, he looks at the concept of “turning prison inside out” by using electronic surveillance. For those of you who recall the ankle unit worn by Martha Stewart after her trial, that is the kind he talks about.

Should we bring more inmates out of prisons and into society — if they can be properly monitored with an ankle device? Will this have a positive, tangible effect on recidivism? On prison overpopulation? As crime rates have gone down, the average sentence term has grown longer, leaving our penal system overloaded with inmates.

This would not be as large of an issue if inmates were reformed. Unfortunately, that is rarely the case, as Wood notes:

But that isn’t the case either: half of those released are back in prison within three years. Indeed, research by the economists Jesse Shapiro of the University of Chicago and M. Keith Chen of Yale indicates that the stated purpose of incarceration, which is to place prisoners under harsh conditions on the assumption that they will be ‘scared straight,’ is actively counterproductive. Such conditions — and U.S. prisons are astonishingly harsh, with as many as 20 percent of male inmates facing sexual assault — typically harden criminals, making them more violent and predatory. Essentially, when we lock someone up today, we are agreeing to pay a large (and growing) sum of money merely to put off dealing with him until he is released in a few years, often as a greater menace to society than when he went in.

It would seem that finding alternatives to incarceration makes good economic sense. Could the use of devices like this allow us to ease the pressure on our strained-to-bursting jails and prisons? Wood outlines a tripod of benefits from using the tracking devices, summed up at the end of the following excerpt from his article:

Devices such as the ExacuTrack, along with other advances in both the ways we monitor criminals and the ways we punish them for their transgressions, suggest a revolutionary possibility: that we might turn the conventional prison system inside out for a substantial number of inmates, doing away with the current, expensive array of guards and cells and fences, in favor of a regimen of close, constant surveillance on the outside and swift, certain punishment for any deviations from an established, legally unobjectionable routine. The potential upside is enormous. Not only might such a system save billions of dollars annually, it could theoretically produce far better outcomes, training convicts to become law-abiders rather than more-ruthless lawbreakers. The ultimate result could be lower crime rates, at a reduced cost, and with considerably less inhumanity in the bargain. [Emphasis ours.]

It is a good argument, and Wood presents a lot of upsides to the approach. Still, there are also all the issues endemic to a surveillance society a well. An argument could be made that this is a slippery slope, with the increasing usage possibly hiding just below the horizon.

As it happens often with social justice issues, benefits must be weighed against the more Orwellian factors when considering this situation. Which side do you find more logical? Let us know, leave a comment!

Source: “Prison Without Walls,” The Atlantic, 09/10
Image copyright Susan Madden Lankford, from the book “Maggots in my Sweet Potatoes: Women Doing Time.” Used with permission.
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Category: Humane Exposures, Maggots in My Sweet Potatoes, Prison, Prison Reform | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
| August 19, 2010
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America’s Prison Plight

Maggots in my Sweet Potatoes: Women Doing TimeIt is no secret that the American prison system is rife with problems. It is the personal stories of women in our penal system that led our own Susan Madden Lankford to create Maggots in my Sweet Potatoes: Women Doing Time, in which she juxtaposes black-and-white images taken in jails with quotes and personal narratives from the incarcerated.

This window into the incarcerated life, its hardships, and its social ramifications, is especially important in the modern day, a day when our penal system is bursting at the seams. David C. Fathi, director of the ACLU National Prison Project in Washington, D.C., attributes this to the “Three Strikes” laws and other mandatory minimum-sentencing laws. He asserts that the overly harsh sentencing is responsible for not only causing the prison population to skyrocket, but is also culpable for the fact that approximately one in 11 of the imprisoned are there for life.

There are many aspects to this breakdown. Craig Welkener of AOL News brings us some of the disturbing facts in his recent opinion piece on the subject. Take particular note of the last two items, which directly affect imprisoned females:

The problems with today’s prisons are well documented. Conditions are deplorable. Here are a few facts:

  • Federal prisons are being operated at 160 percent capacity. Mandatory minimum sentences are putting thousands of nonviolent offenders in prison, for disproportionately long terms.
  • Approximately two-thirds of prisoners released each year will be back behind bars in some form before three years have passed.
  • Mental health care is woefully inadequate.
  • Prison rape is a moral outrage rampant across America. More than 60,500 inmates reported sexual abuse in 2007 (the actual number of rapes is likely far higher), and nearly 1 out of every 8 juveniles in custody became a victim of sexual assault from 2008 to 2009, according to a Department of Justice study.
  • Most states still allow the shackling of women during labor and delivery, often causing permanent scars. This unnecessary and humiliating procedure is opposed by the American Medical Association, the Rebecca Project for Human Rights and virtually anyone else who knows about it.

In short, the system is not working.

Those last two items in particular seem like something from the Middle Ages, yet they are faced daily in modern America. All of the factors listed by Welkener contribute to the additional trouble that former inmates have in reintegrating themselves back into society.

Take a look inside these walls, a bracing look at fellow humans fighting circumstances that dehumanize: Take a look at Maggots in my Sweet Potatoes: Women Doing Time. Unfiltered and presented in the words of the jailers and the imprisoned, it will take you into the chiaroscuro world of the female inmate, a world never seen before in quite this way.

Source: “Opinion: Why Obama Should Take on Prison Reform,” AOL News, 08/17/10
Image copyright Susan Madden Lankford, from the book “Maggots in my Sweet Potatoes: Women Doing Time.” Used with permission.
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Category: Humane Exposures, Juvenile Justice, Prison, Prison Reform, Women's Issues | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
| August 16, 2010
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eHow Covers Alternatives to Imprisonment for Women

Maggots in my Sweet Potatoes: Women Doing TimeThe issue of imprisoned women is the elephant in the room. A quick Google search reveals that it is a well-known problem, and one that is getting steadily worse. There’s even an article about alternatives to incarceration for women on the popular “how-to” website eHow.

The site includes simple directions on how to do a wide variety of things. From making a better paper airplane to instructions for electronics projects, there is a mass of instructional material there that has become a standard destination for web surfers. It is therefore interesting to see eHow’s approach to this delicate but important subject.

Kristine Paglio, an eHow contributing writer, sets the stage for her article on the subject with some quick background notes:

Women currently constitute the fastest-growing subset of offenders being incarcerated. In the United States, women make up 7 percent of the total prison population. Incarcerated women are usually convicted of non-violent or drug-related offenses, or as accessories to a crime. Due to the lack of their participation in violent crime, many women can be considered for alternatives to incarceration, as they do not pose a threat to society. Offering them alternatives to incarceration allows women to care for their children and acquire education and job skills, as well as participate in needed counseling or therapy.

Once more, we see the common thread that is turning up more and more frequently, an emphasis on reintegration with society rather than on meting out punishment. Several of our recent posts have touched on that very theme. The similarities continue when one looks at the specific approaches that address this issue. Paglio lists a number of them in her article:

These alternative programs include, but are not limited to: electronic monitoring (i.e., home confinement); parenting classes; educational programming (including G.E.D. acquisition); employability programs (which impart skills like cooking and data entry); abuse and victimization therapy (which teach offenders to break the cycle of relationship violence); supervised living (e.g., halfway houses); and day supervision (in which the offender must submit to drug testing, perform community service and observe a mandated curfew).

Trauma and substance-abuse issues must also be considered, since almost 60-70%  of incarcerated women have been  abused or victimized, have a substance abuse problem, and have children. Skill- and confidence-building programs such as those suggested above provide additional tools for the inmate to use in her reentry into larger society.

What are your thoughts on these alternative programs? Do you think that a more socially utilitarian approach, where reintegration into the greater whole is the main objective, is the way to proceed? Let us know!

Source: “Alternatives to Incarceration for Women,” eHow, undated
Image copyright Susan Madden Lankford, from the book “Maggots in my Sweet Potatoes: Women Doing Time.” Used with permission.
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Category: Prison, Women's Issues | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
| August 13, 2010
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Poehlmann Studies Effect of Incarcerated Parents on Children

Maggots in my Sweet Potatoes: Women Doing Time

Having a parent in prison is a hard to bear for a child, I think we all can agree on that. Is there a way to quantify the effect this can have on a child’s social development though? It’s an important question because of the sheer number of children it affects.

Julie Poehlmann, a professor at the School of Human Ecology and investigator at the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, estimates that 1.7 million (about 2.3%) children across America have a parent in prison. A truly staggering number.

David Tennenbaum, a freelance writer, recently published a piece on the University of Wisconsin website, in which he interviewed Poehlmann on the subject:

Although a definitive cause-and-effect relationship has not been established, children of incarcerated parents tend to have more arrests, and more problems with behavior, relationships, school, and substance abuse. ‘It’s all the things you would expect,’ says Poehlmann.

Problems are particularly acute when the mother is in jail or prison. ‘It’s more likely that the child will move out of house, and be placed with grandparents,’ she says. ‘They are more likely to change schools and have a higher risk of substance abuse, and the father is also likely to be incarcerated.’

Bleak, but not unexpected. A child with an incarcerated parent is at a pronounced disadvantage compared to his or her peers in many ways. There is possibility of mitigating these circumstances though:

Poehlmann, who has studied mothers, substitute caregivers and children in Milwaukee, Racine, Green Bay, Beloit and other parts of Wisconsin, finds that a strong, close attachment with the alternative caregiver can mitigate the harm of incarceration.

Since it is during childhood that we shape the adults of tomorrow, this is a subject of no small gravity. Do you have experience as a parent, child, or caregiver in this sort of situation? If so, we would love to add your perspective to the conversation, please leave us a comment and let us know your thoughts.

Source: “Research examines the price of prison for children,” University of Wisconsin-Madison News, 08/09/10
Image copyright Susan Madden Lankford, from the book “Maggots in my Sweet Potatoes: Women Doing Time.” Used with permission.
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Category: Maggots in My Sweet Potatoes, Not Raised, Prison | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
| August 12, 2010
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Recidivism May Be Worse Than We Think

Maggots in my Sweet Potatoes: Women Doing TimeRecidivism: returning to a behavior pattern despite negative reinforcement. It’s a term most often used in cases of criminal activity or substance abuse. It is a chronic problem in the penal systems around the world, not just in the United States.

A few years ago, the BBC examined recidivism rates in the U.S. and the U.K., with some interesting results (via the Wikipedia entry for “recidivism”):

As reported on BBC Radio 4 on 2 September 2005, the recidivism rates for released prisoners in the United States of America is 60% compared with 50% in the United Kingdom but cross-country statistical comparisons are often questionable. The report attributed the lower recidivism rate in the UK to a focus on rehabilitation and education of prisoners compared with the US focus on punishment, deterrence and keeping potentially dangerous individuals away from society.

While the actual statistics may be a bit out of date, the idea on what fuels the disparity is worthy of note. The U.K. approach is geared towards reintegrating inmates into society by giving them tools with which to operate within its strictures. The programs taking this approach are popping up across the U.S. as well.

Still, the sheer number of people returning to jail after their initial term is staggering. What’s worse, according to a new study conducted in Memphis, Tennessee, those numbers may be higher than we have previously thought. Michael Lollar, a reporter for The Commercial Appeal, gives us the details:

[…U]p to 94 percent of former inmates will be rearrested and up to 81 percent will wind up behind bars again.

The numbers are part of a 20-year study that shows recidivism is far worse than statistics usually indicate. It is the only study done over such a long period of time, tracking inmates who were first jailed at the correction center between 1987 and 1991, says psychologist Dr. Greg Little…

Drs. Greg Little and Kenneth Robinson, founders of Correctional Counseling Inc., began the study in order to track the effectiveness of their treatment program as opposed to “traditional” incarceration. One reason that their numbers show a greater increase is, they say, grounded in methodology. Lollar’s article explains:

Tennessee Department of Correction studies show recidivism rates of about 51 percent over a three-year period, and national studies show recidivism averages of roughly 65 percent over three years. But Little and Robinson say the numbers keep going up over time, and the numbers are higher because most studies don’t count re-incarcerations that took place in other states or in courts other than the original case. For instance, an inmate released on state probation or parole is seldom counted as a recidivist if later jailed for a federal crime.

Even if their numbers prove incorrect, the ones they purport to replace are bad enough. Once jailed, more than half of all inmates will face a return to prison in their fairly near future. I think we can all agree that a system that is less than 50% effective is far from being in good working order.

The questions remain: How do we reduce the rates of recidivism? Does rehabilitation have a greater overall effect than simple punishment? Are there other techniques that can aid in rectifying this unfortunate situation? Let us know your thoughts in the comments — HUMANE EXPOSURES wants to know!

Source: “Recidivism,” Wikipedia
Source: “Recidivism rate worse than statistics indicate, Memphis-area study finds,” The Commercial Appeal, 03/07/10
Image copyright Susan Madden Lankford, from the book “Maggots in my Sweet Potatoes: Women Doing Time.” Used with permission.
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Category: Humane Exposures, Maggots in My Sweet Potatoes, Prison, Substance Abuse | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
| August 11, 2010
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Photographer Deborah Luster: Doing Time in Louisiana

Deborah Luster - LCIW25, 1999 Silver Gelatin print on aluminumDeborah Luster has entered the world of rural Louisiana prisons with camera in hand, just like our own Susan Madden Lankford did, when shooting in California for her book, Maggots in my Sweet Potatoes: Women Doing Time. Luster’s work in Louisiana prisons was also collected in a book, titled One Big Self. (It has received Book of the Year Award from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.) While there are similarities between the two, Luster has started on this path due to a personal tragedy, as this excerpt from her bio on the Edelman Gallery website shows:

Murder is not generally a subject in which most artists find themselves immersed. But twelve years ago, Deborah Luster’s mother was murdered, sparking a photographic project which led her to three different state penitentiaries in Louisiana, her home state, as a means of healing and understanding. Photographing inmates against a black backdrop or in the fields, Luster captures the individuals housed behind the barbed wire and prison cells in a project called ‘One Big Self.’ Cutting 5 x 4″ aluminum and coating it with a liquid silver emulsion, Luster creates images which serve as reliquaries for these men and women whose cockiness, youth, bravado and shyness are embedded in these pocket-sized contemporary tintypes. Through these images she asks us to ‘see beyond their crimes… to suggest that our punitive models are as reflective of who we are as our reward system.’

That last sentence speaks volumes about the similarities between the two photographers. In their own ways, both have humanized the people who had been relegated to the limbo of mere statistics. The approach to their projects was quite a bit different though. Where Lankford’s book contains an array of personal narritives transcribed from her discussions with prisoners, Luster used a different approach. She also talked extensively with the prisoners she had photographed, but, rather than using the exact words of the inmates themselves, she had relied on a poet to create the text based on these interviews.

I first ran across Luster’s work at The Newcomb Art Gallery in New Orleans, and later at Prospect.1, also in New Orleans. Her method of presentation was fascinating, drawing on institutional themes to compliment the photos. The following video will give you a quick look at the Newcomb show, as Luster talks about her work and its presentation:

Since everything in Louisiana has a culinary angle, Luster has incorporated it into her work by photographing the kitchen staff at the Angola State Prison and the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women. The Kitchen Sisters at NPR have interviewed Luster for their Hidden Kitchens series, while also working on a feature for NPR about One Big Self. Both pieces are well worth a look.

Source: “After Mother’s Murder, Artist Photographs Prisoners,” NPR, The Kitchen Sisters, 08/09/10
Source: “Deborah Luster’s Hidden Kitchens,” KitchenSisters.org, 06/30/10
Image courtesy of Deborah Luster and Jack Shainman Gallery, NY.
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Category: Maggots in My Sweet Potatoes, Photography, Prison | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
| August 5, 2010
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Education-Based Incarceration in Southern California

Stack of BooksIncarceration is usually considered to be about punishment. Since 2006, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca has helmed a plan that adopts a variant view and is aimed at reducing criminal recidivism.

The program, called MERIT (which stands for Maximizing Education, Reaching Individual Transformation), focuses on education-based incarceration. It is designed to help provide reintegration of offenders into their communities in a way that enhances stability for both. Since 2006, 11 classes had graduated from MERIT.

Jim Lynch, reporting for The Century City News, explains the basics of the program:

MERIT is comprised of three unique rehabilitation programs: Bridges to Recovery, a two-phase twelve week domestic violence intervention and recovery program; Veterans Program, a two-phase twelve week program designed to provide incarcerated U.S. military veterans with a sense of regained pride and direction; and the Impact Program, which is a therapeutic treatment program for inmates sentenced by the various drug courts in Los Angeles County.

The curriculum for these three programs provides an educational framework to challenge the negative beliefs and behaviors that perpetuate personal and family dysfunction, including information on the negative impact of violence and the abuse of drugs and alcohol on the individual, the family and the community. The areas of study include personal relationships, parenting, substance abuse prevention, leadership and job skills.

In order to graduate from MERIT, the participants have to complete written assignments and submit an “Exit Plan,” designed to address the challenges they will face in their reintegration into society. Areas such as employment, family, and legal issues, among others, are addressed as participants develop their objectives for their first few months of freedom.

HUMANE EXPOSURES is interested in your thoughts and opinions on this sort of approach to reducing recidivism. Please share them with us in the comments section.

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Source: “Investing in Offenders Through Education Based Incarceration,” Century City News, 08/02/10
Image by Wonderlane, used under its Creative Commons license.
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Category: Prison | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
| September 17, 2009
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Mission Statement

“The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.” -George Bernard Shaw

Humane Exposures is a socially driven project geared toward public awareness and education about the graphic needs and frail values of a society at risk. Humane Exposures takes a penetrating look at society’s disenfranchised and castaways—the denizens of our streets and the homeless, and the emotionally and physically incarcerated—by looking at the underlying social issues leading up to the incarceration of women, children in foster care, and youths in juvenile hall caught up in the cycle of institutionalization.

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