Felony disenfranchisement is a major issue to us. Al Gore would be our President today if Floridian felons had the vote back then. Rebecca Perl of the Center for Investigative Reporting has a new article in the Nation on this single largest group of citizens banned from voting.

Felons and former felons are the single largest group barred by law from voting in the US. Most states passed disenfranchisement laws after the Civil War when blacks were first gaining the right to vote. Prisoners never lose their right to vote in twenty countries across Europe. Eighty percent of Americans favor restoring the right to vote to ex-prisoners who have completed their sentences. If felons had the vote in 2000, Al Gore would have won the popular vote by more than a million votes.

....Civil rights advocates predict that voting rights for prisoners and ex-prisoners will be the next US suffrage movement, as lawyers, prison advocates, voting rights groups and foundations have recently begun to join forces and take up the cause. "The United States, this great democracy, was founded as this experiment, and it was a great experiment. But it was a very limited one as well," says Marc Mauer of the Sentencing Project, a prison advocacy group in Washington, DC. "At the time the country was founded, essentially a group of wealthy white men granted themselves the right to vote." Mauer says that today, we look back on that decision with some degree of national embarrassment, and our history since then has been one of trying to open the franchise.

For more, see Whose Vote Counts? Our prior writings on the topic are accessible here.

[comments now closed]

Another problem Governor-Elect Arnold Schwarzenegger will inherit is the bloated California prison expense which is $544 million over budget--largely the fault of Gov. Gray Davis and his catering to the prison guard's union:

The California Department of Corrections is overspending its budget by more than $544 million, and perhaps far more, largely because of pay hikes, overtime and other benefits granted to prison guards by Gov. Gray Davis and the Legislature last year.

...The department attributes the largest single chunk -- $184 million -- to increases of nearly 7 percent this year in salaries for prison officers and raises for other prison employees. Another $168.5 million results from the department's need to increase payments to the employees' pension fund, in part because of past stock market declines, but also because increased salaries had added to retirement pay.

....The Davis administration negotiated a labor package with the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. last year, granting roughly 28,000 members salary increases of as much as 37 percent spread over the five-year life of the contract. By 2006, prison officers are expected to be making $73,000 a year.

The prison guard union is enormously influential in California because they contribute heavily to political campaigns:

The union contributed $1.4 million to Davis directly and indirectly during his first term. The union gave his 2002 reelection campaign $251,000 two months after he signed the legislation approving their pay raise.

Some suggest turning to private prisons. The prison guards union has objected to that. We have a better idea. Reduce the number of inmates. Release the drug and non-violent offenders. Home detention and electronic monitoring is another option.

Ashcroft warns of the impact of Senate budget cuts in the federal prison system:

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Attorney General John Ashcroft have raised serious objections to the Senate spending plan for their departments, saying the measure could undermine American counterterrorism efforts and diplomacy. The concerns raised by the two cabinet officials over the $37 billion spending proposal add new complications to the push by Republican Congressional leaders to wrap up the remaining appropriations bills, now almost a month overdue. The House and Senate are preparing this week to pass another temporary spending bill that would keep all federal agencies open past Friday, when the current stopgap measure expires.

In separate letters to House leaders this month, Mr. Powell and Mr. Ashcroft said the spending proposal now awaiting Senate action would hinder the work of their departments, result in layoffs, and, in the case of the federal prison system, lead to the closing of some units and crowding at others.

"We do not directly control the number of inmates that enter into our prison system," wrote Mr. Ashcroft. "An overall reduction of the magnitude included in the Senate bill — approximately $270 million below the request — would have a dramatic adverse impact on the staff and inmate safety at existing facilities." (emphasis supplied by us)

As one of TalkLeft's most astute readers emails us:

Gee, John, do you think that perhaps the Department's history of pushing for increased sentencing guidelines, fighting departures, mandatory minimums, etc., might have something to do with the number of inmates in the prison system? The chickens come home to roost.

Ashcroft warns of the impact of Senate budget cuts in the federal prison system:

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Attorney General John Ashcroft have raised serious objections to the Senate spending plan for their departments, saying the measure could undermine American counterterrorism efforts and diplomacy. The concerns raised by the two cabinet officials over the $37 billion spending proposal add new complications to the push by Republican Congressional leaders to wrap up the remaining appropriations bills, now almost a month overdue. The House and Senate are preparing this week to pass another temporary spending bill that would keep all federal agencies open past Friday, when the current stopgap measure expires.

In separate letters to House leaders this month, Mr. Powell and Mr. Ashcroft said the spending proposal now awaiting Senate action would hinder the work of their departments, result in layoffs, and, in the case of the federal prison system, lead to the closing of some units and crowding at others.

"We do not directly control the number of inmates that enter into our prison system," wrote Mr. Ashcroft. "An overall reduction of the magnitude included in the Senate bill — approximately $270 million below the request — would have a dramatic adverse impact on the staff and inmate safety at existing facilities." (emphasis supplied by us)

As one of TalkLeft's most astute readers emails us:

Gee, John, do you think that perhaps the Department's history of pushing for increased sentencing guidelines, fighting departures, mandatory minimums, etc., might have something to do with the number of inmates in the prison system? The chickens come home to roost.

Bump and Update: We just received an email advising that the Senate version of the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act, H.R. 2387, which is the Dewine bill (S. 1194), passed the Senate by unanimous consent last night. Here's the text of the bill as reported in the Senate.

Here's a quote from the hearing testimony of the President of the Association of State Correctional Administrators in in support of the bill:

On behalf of all directors of state departments of correction and hundreds of thousands of correctional employees across the country, representing prisons, jails, juvenile facilities, and community corrections operations, I want to tell you this: Senator DeWine’s introduction of S. 1194, together with the bipartisan support Senator Leahy and various members of the Committee have provided, has been the single most important and positive legislative development for corrections and mental health workers to occur in Congress in recent memory.

***************
Original post: 10/27, 10 pm

Last week we wrote about a new study showing there are hundreds of thousands of mentally ill inmates in the U.S. The report says that one in five of the 2.1 million people in America's jails and prisons are seriously mentally ill.

The study, by Human Rights Watch, concludes that jails and prisons have become the nation's default mental health system, as more state hospitals have closed and as the country's prison system has quadrupled over the past 30 years. There are now fewer than 80,000 people in mental hospitals, and the number is continuing to fall.

Thankfully, the media is picking up on the study. The Atlanta Journal Constitution has this editorial. Findlaw columnist Joanne Mariner writes this column today, pointing out the importance of our support for the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act, H.R. 2387, pending in Congress.

[the bill] would provide federal grants to divert mentally ill offenders into treatment programs rather than prison or jail. It also allocates funding to improve the quality of prison and jail mental health services, and to establish discharge programs for mentally ill prisoners who are released.

It is a national shame that our prisons and jails serve as mental institutions. It reflects a lack of planning, a failure of public commitment, and a single-minded focus on punishment. The pending legislation represents a saner and more compassionate approach.

You can read the text of the bill here. Sen. Patrick Leahy's statements are here and here.

Bump and Update: We just received an email advising that the Senate version of the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act, H.R. 2387, which is the Dewine bill (S. 1194), passed the Senate by unanimous consent last night. Here's the text of the bill as reported in the Senate.

Here's a quote from the hearing testimony of the President of the Association of State Correctional Administrators in in support of the bill:

On behalf of all directors of state departments of correction and hundreds of thousands of correctional employees across the country, representing prisons, jails, juvenile facilities, and community corrections operations, I want to tell you this: Senator DeWine’s introduction of S. 1194, together with the bipartisan support Senator Leahy and various members of the Committee have provided, has been the single most important and positive legislative development for corrections and mental health workers to occur in Congress in recent memory.

***************
Original post: 10/27, 10 pm

Last week we wrote about a new study showing there are hundreds of thousands of mentally ill inmates in the U.S. The report says that one in five of the 2.1 million people in America's jails and prisons are seriously mentally ill.

The study, by Human Rights Watch, concludes that jails and prisons have become the nation's default mental health system, as more state hospitals have closed and as the country's prison system has quadrupled over the past 30 years. There are now fewer than 80,000 people in mental hospitals, and the number is continuing to fall.

Thankfully, the media is picking up on the study. The Atlanta Journal Constitution has this editorial. Findlaw columnist Joanne Mariner writes this column today, pointing out the importance of our support for the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act, H.R. 2387, pending in Congress.

[the bill] would provide federal grants to divert mentally ill offenders into treatment programs rather than prison or jail. It also allocates funding to improve the quality of prison and jail mental health services, and to establish discharge programs for mentally ill prisoners who are released.

It is a national shame that our prisons and jails serve as mental institutions. It reflects a lack of planning, a failure of public commitment, and a single-minded focus on punishment. The pending legislation represents a saner and more compassionate approach.

You can read the text of the bill here. Sen. Patrick Leahy's statements are here and here.

A new study shows Hundreds of Thousands of Inmates Mentally Ill prisoners in the U.S. One in five of the 2.1 million people in America's jails and prisons are seriously mentally ill.

The study, by Human Rights Watch, concludes that jails and prisons have become the nation's default mental health system, as more state hospitals have closed and as the country's prison system has quadrupled over the past 30 years. There are now fewer than 80,000 people in mental hospitals, and the number is continuing to fall.

There are many more mentally ill female than male prisoners.

In a story of redemption vs. punishment in Georgia, for once, redemption wins out.

Charles Young was 28 when he brutally killed a banker. He was convicted, sentenced to death, and then resentenced to life with parole. After 28 years in prison, at the age of 56, the Georgia Parole Board has voted to parole him.

During Charlie Young's 28 years in prison, he has never been cited for breaking the rules. Young's parole file is filled with the names of wardens, chaplains and counselors willing to provide character references for him.

Little has been written in the press about the substance of the Prison Rape Elimination Act. We may have been too hasty in endorsing those who criticize the Act. Sometimes reform has to begin with small steps. Here are some of the beneficial provisions, according to information we have received:

The bill authorizes $40 million in rape prevention grants, establishes at DOJ a review panel with subpoena power to call to Washington prison and jail officials who run facilities with high incidences of prison rape, and establishes an independent national commission (not a Justice Department Commission) with the power to promulgate standards on prison rape that will apply to the overwhelming majority of prisons and jails in the country.

Excellent article in Slate today about why no one really cares about prison rape. The authors note that the recent Prison Rape Elimination Act that passed Congress merely provides for a study on the issue--not to do anything about it. The authors, have some suggestions:

Perhaps while this federal study is under way, there are other, more honest ways of acknowledging what the American prison system has created. Perhaps every sentencing judge should require that a defendant headed for prison be given extensive "pre-rape counseling" in the hope that he or she can take some small personal steps to reduce the risk of attack. Or perhaps we could require judges to demand data about the differential risks of rape and assault for different types of prisoners in different prisons and begin to factor such data into any sentence. "You committed murder, so let's send you somewhere where you're really likely to be raped." In that way we will be at least as brutally honest with ourselves as we are literally brutal with our prisoners.

[link via Instapundit]

More good news: The 9th Circuit rules for prisoner privacy over the FBI's DNA databank program:

A 3-year-old law that requires federal prisoners to give blood samples for the FBI's DNA database was declared unconstitutional Thursday by a federal appeals court.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that requiring the blood samples amounts to an illegal invasion of privacy because they are taken without legal suspicion that the convicts were involved in other crimes.

The San Francisco-based court, the first federal appeals court to address the federal DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act, said that is a violation of inmates' Fourth Amendment rights against illegal searches.

Maybe now more of that $545 million earmarked for the backlog of DNA testing of unsolved crimes in the Bush-backed Debbie Smith Act can go to testing prisoners with innocence claims under the Innocence Protection portion of the new Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology Act introduced in Congress yesterday.

Update: What the Court held:

Trying to cut budgets, prisons in several states have revised their food plans to reduce calories for inmates.

These new food plans involve either reducing the number of calories provided each day or eliminating a meal on weekends and holidays by serving two meals instead of three.

....Experts on prisons say, however, that food is only a very small part of the overall cost of running a prison system — about 80 percent of prison budgets go for guards' salaries — so that any saving achieved by reducing inmates' food will be minimal and comes at a risk.

We see this as misguided, unfair and just another attempt to denigrate the least powerful among us.

The reduction in daily calories was a result of a bill passed by the Texas Legislature that required the Department of Criminal Justice to reduce its budget by 5 percent, or $230 million, this year, with about $6 million of that coming from reduced spending on food, Mr. Todd said.

State Representative Ray Allen, a Republican who is chairman of the House Corrections Committee, said, "It was not our first choice to cut their food, but we had a $9.9 billion shortfall."

Here's how the cuts are effectuated: